Foster clan, descendents of Cottonwood pioneers, gathering this weekend for Historical Society fete

JACOB

ADELINE

FORSTER HOTEL: A photograph dating from about 1880 includes Jacob and Adeline Forster, in black formal wear nearest the horses, as well as Johannis Forster, on porch, and his wife, Mary, who operated the hotel for many years, standing with the children.

More than 100 descendants of Jacob and Adeline Forster, founders of Cottonwood, will gather from across the continent this weekend to witness their forebearers addition to Shasta Historical Society's exclusive Pioneer Plaque program.

Some family members have never met face to face; they have merely spoken to each other via phone or traded emails as each branch of the family tree was linked through research to the main trunk, explained Paul Foster of Sedona, Ariz., a great-great-grandson of Jacob and Adeline Forster and the driving force behind the family gathering.

Early on in its history, family members in America dropped the R from Forster, a Bavarian variation, to adopt the more common spelling, said Foster, 58, a fifth-generation descendent of the couple who built the two story Forster Hotel in Cottonwood in 1861 or 1862 and later enticed the Central Pacific Rail Road Company to build its depot and passenger station near the hotel on Jacob Forster's 40-acre homestead and ranch.

Cottonwood quickly grew up around the two businesses as the southern gateway to Shasta County, recounts Foster in a 73-page book on the family's colorful history.

Jacob Forster's brother, Johannis (John) and sister-in-law, Mary, operated the hotel and Jacob's son, John H. Foster, became the town's first train dispatcher, Paul Foster recounts. A grandson, Ellis Foster, entered into the butter making business and sold iced cream and butter from the basement of the former John Foster home east of the railroad tracks and south of the depot for many years, the budding historian said.

The Pioneer Plaque program encourages present-day descendants to honor their ancestors with a memorial contribution, an exhibit of family artifacts and a reception hosted by society members, explained Nola Shoup, who chairs the program committee.

To qualify, each family must do its own research to establish that their relatives were indeed residents of Shasta County more than 80 years ago. Currently, the historical society lists more than 250 names on its Pioneer Plaque display wall with new names joining the list about every six months, explained Lola Schwartz, who helps provide each honored family with refreshments.

The 2 p.m. Saturday ceremony marks nearly a solid year of almost constant research by Paul Foster, assisted in varying degree by hundreds of other family members who shared individual pieces of the puzzle, he said.

"It all started about six years ago when I was taking care of my parents and I started to clean out the closet of the bedroom I had in high school. I found a Masonic sword that my grandfather had given me that summer between high school and college. I had placed the sword at the back of the rather large closet and forgotten about it for 33 years," recounts Foster.

A flood of memories spurred on by two other family heirlooms - Jacob Forster's 1851 Navy Colt 36 caliber revolver purchased in St. Louis, Mo., prior to his second trip west to California in 1852 and an 1891 book on Northern California history containing a biographical sketch of Jacob's oldest son, John Henry Foster - nearly overwhelmed Paul Foster, who started researching his family's history in greater detail.

"It struck me that the gun, the book and the sword needed to be kept together and placed on display where people who understood their significance could appreciate them.

During the next several years, from 2005 to 2008, he traveled to Shasta County several times to meet with local historian Dottie Smith, who in turn introduced him to the local historical society.

"I was wonderfully overwhelmed with the society's records of our Foster family history, but I held on to everything as I waited to see whether the community of Cottonwood could put together a museum," Foster said.

Finally, almost a year ago on Aug. 23, 2008, Foster called a family reunion at Anderson River Park to launch an all-out effort to link as many members of the family involved as possible.

"Grasping the totality of a life is nearly an impossible task, even among the living," Foster wrote in the forward of the family's seven generation geneology that was designed and laid out by Foster's cousin, Lisa Bradley, of Santa Barbara.

The book project has consumed the lives of Foster and Bradley, who have spent hours and hours on the telephone, traded countless emails and swapped hundreds of photographs sent in by family members, said Bradley, 46, a self-proclaimed graphic artist.

"It's been a great adventure. The more I have dug into the family history, the more amazing it becomes. Seeing the names acquire faces in old photographs, and then watching those faces come to life as we connect those images with the stories of the things they did, encountered or lived through - these are now real people to me and I hope to others who read the book," Bradley said.

"What a world we live in, having the capabilities of the internet. What an incredible tool it has been for bridging the past and building the future with people we have never met or hope to meet.

There's a wealth of information to discover right at our fingertips. A little curiosity and diligence goes a long way - in this case - towards creating a bond that will forever be a part of who we are and a heritage to pass on for generations to come," Lisa Bradley writes in an email to the Valley Post regarding the year-long research project.