Julie Foster, lawyer, child advocate

Julie Irene Foster, an attorney and child advocate known for her openhearted enthusiasm, died unexpectedly on Wednesday, May 11, 2005. She was 49, the wife of Dr. Craig R. Foster, and the mother of three grown children, Cheryl, Matthew and Mark.

Police went to the family’s home off North Salem Road last Wednesday, and the state medical examiner’s office said later that the cause of death was drowning by accident.

Ms. Foster had “a warm and electric personality and embraced all who came through her door,” the Rev. Dr. Roy Hassel told a crowd of mourners who filled Jesse Lee Methodist Church and spilled out into the garden Monday afternoon at services for her.

She was born in Billings, Mont., June 4, 1955, daughter of Robert H. Asher of Denver, Colo., and the late Sheila Dunstan Asher. As a young woman she lived in Wilton and had graduated from Wilton High School.

Ms. Foster graduated magna cum laude from Central Connecticut State University and from Western New England Law School and earned her master’s of business administration from the University of Connecticut.

For many years she practiced law with the firm of Jowdy & Jowdy in Danbury and for the past 10 years was in private practice at her home in Ridgefield. She remained active in the Danbury Bar Association. Her legal work included frequent service as a court-appointed representative for children in family disputes. Often, she did the work for free, and in 1997 she received the Danbury Bar Association’s Pro Bono award for her achievements in child advocacy.

“An attorney can be strong and effective without being harsh,” her friend, Sheila Holzbach, told the crowd at Jesse Lee.

In Ridgefield over the years Ms. Foster was involved and well known. She coached Pop Warner cheerleaders, choreographed the dancing for a Ridgebury Elementary School play, and taught aerobics -- for free -- at Jesse Lee Methodist Church.

She opened her family’s home on North Salem Road to a number of Republican events, including a visit by Senator John McCain in 2000.

She and her husband, a Danbury orthopedist, attended President George W. Bush’s first inauguration in 2000. But the Fosters didn’t leave for the weekend of balls and socializing until after her son Mark’s Ridgefield High School basketball game that Friday night. “We slept a few hours. We got up at 2:30 and drove down,” she told The Press at the time. “...We just didn’t want to miss the basketball game.”

Her dedication to her family was renowned.

“Craig and the children were the loves of her life,” Dr. Robert Reiffel said at Monday’s service.

The Rev. William Pfohl, Jesse Lee’s pastor, shared with the crowd something of Ms. Foster’s approach to life, as she had told it to an Emmaus gathering: “I would make the absolute best of myself, and then if God blessed me with a husband and children I would shower them with love every single minute of every day.”

She was known for her personal warmth and positive energy.

“I cannot recall a time when she wasn’t smiling,” Dr. John Wilson said Monday.

Her Christmas cards were legendary. She sent out hundreds, with long personal notes Ñ and they always seemed to arrive as the season’s first.

Besides her husband and children, Ms. Foster is survived by her father, Robert Asher, and her brother, Michael H. Asher and his wife, Carolyn, and their sons, Nicholas and Peter; her mother-in-law, Eleanor Foster; her brothers-in-law Bradley Foster and Robert Foster and his wife, Betty, and their children, Christine and Tara.

After the funeral services at the Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church on Monday, May 16, she was buried at Hillside Cemetery, in Wilton.

Contributions in her memory may be made to the Danbury Hospital Development Fund, 24 Hospital Avenue, Danbury, CT 06810.

Green Funeral Home in Danbury was in charge of arrangements. --M.K.R.