Mason's "First Couple" Weathers Life's Adventures with Grace

by Anne Reynolds

Mason's "First Couple" Weathers Life's Adventures with Grace
George Mason College students Thomas and Helen Foster, pictured in 1969

Each alumnus of George Mason University takes from the university a collection of experiences and memories that shapes who they will be in the future. Two alumni in particular walked forth from the very early days of George Mason with a foundation that has allowed them to continue to flourish.

Helen Foster, MD, BA English ’69, and Thomas Foster, BA Business and Public Administration ’69, arrived at George Mason College of the University of Virginia (UVA), as it was then known, in fall 1965. The Fairfax Campus had been dedicated only one year before, in November 1964, and the original four buildings that comprised the campus (North, South, East, and West) were brand-new. Green and gold had only recently been chosen as school colors by the student body, which was less than 600 students. And at the time, George Mason College was a two-year institution that did not grant academic degrees.

Helen did not contemplate a lengthy stay at George Mason College. Her father, Edgar Allen Prichard, had been instrumental in bringing the college to Fairfax, working as a
member of the Fairfax City Council and later as mayor of the City of Fairfax (he went on to become a trustee of the George Mason University Foundation and member of the Board of Visitors, where he served as rector from 1989 to 1991. He was awarded the Mason Medal in 1995). Helen, however, planned to attend Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, after spending her first year of school closer to home.

Tom was initially drawn to Mason because of its reputation as part of UVA and its proximity to his family’s home in Woodbridge, Virginia. “I could go to George Mason for two years and transfer to UVA after that,” he explains. “I’d get a good education and graduate from a prestigious school in one fell swoop—it looked like an advantageous thing to do.”

But when the couple met in a freshman English class, their plans shifted. Helen decided not to move on to Dickinson. And in 1966, when Virginia’s General Assembly made George Mason College into a four-year, degree-granting institution, Tom elected to stay in Fairfax as well. At the end of their junior year, the couple married, and in 1969 became the first married couple to graduate from Mason.

The Fosters recollect the excitement of being part of a fledgling school. “It was a function of being a new school, that didn’t have a complete faculty or a permanent academic staff. They really did a good job bringing in people from the community,” says Tom. “And the community we were in, in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., they had a lot of good professionals that they could draw upon.”

He continues, “The people had some practical experience. For example, I remember the fellow who taught the accounting courses—whom I liked a whole lot—was the controller for the university. He was doing it as a second job. And the problems that he had us working on were the things facing him in his work. That really made it more relevant.”

The late 1960s were a turbulent time in U.S. history, with college campuses often at the center of the unrest. George Mason College was no exception. Helen relates the activities of James Shea, an associate professor of philosophy who was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and the draft, and recalls attending services at a local African American church after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

After graduation, the Fosters moved from Fairfax to Charlottesville, Virginia, where Tom earned his master of business administration degree at UVA. The couple was part of the first observance of Earth Day in 1970, and while in Charlottesville, they welcomed their first child.

With Tom’s MBA degree in hand, the family moved to Hunterdon County in central New Jersey, where Tom played a role in the rapid transformation of the region. “I was a loan
officer for the bank up there and that was in an era when that community was changing. It had been a rural farming community, and one of the big things happening was that Merck was moving its corporate headquarters out to that county. So my farmer clients were in the process of selling their land to developers, getting big amounts of money and trying to figure out what to do with it. Of course, the bankers were very happy to help them.”

While in New Jersey, Helen and Tom added to their family, and Helen pursued a passion that continues to this day: writing. She has had a number of poems and other pieces published, is the author of several books that are yet to be published, and is involved with a writing group.

After nearly six years in New Jersey, however, the family was drawn by a business school contact to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Tom became the financial director of a group of family-owned businesses and Helen tracked down the premed courses she had been unable to take while at George Mason College. “I commuted with our little boy in the car to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and renewed my science courses, organic chemistry, and biochemistry.”

With the science requirements completed, Helen applied to the Medical College of Virginia (now part of Virginia Commonwealth University) was accepted, and the family moved to Richmond.

Helen launched into her medical school classes, residency, and career as a psychiatrist, while Tom worked with United Virginia Bank (which became Crestar, and later SunTrust), for a 13-year tenure with the company. By that time, he says, he was in a position “as the compliance officer, a job that should have been manned by a lawyer. While I had a lot of legal knowledge specifically about employee benefit plans, I didn’t have the general legal background. So I thought, this is the right time to go to law school.”

Tom chose to attend the University of Richmond for much of the same reason he had chosen George Mason for his undergraduate education. “It was convenient, right in town, and in addition, I maintained my contacts. I continued working with a law firm in Richmond doing employee benefits work for them while I was in
law school.”

With Helen’s medical practice established in the Richmond area, Tom recalls, “At one point, she had two children in college and a husband in law school, who she was supporting.”

Today, the Fosters make their home in Richmond, having raised two children and with
a fourth grandchild on the way. They return to Mason when their schedules permit; their last visit was in fall 2014, following the 50th reunion of Helen’s class from Fairfax High School.

Asked their impressions of Mason’s Fairfax Campus now, Helen replies, “Well, it certainly has grown, and it’s very impressive.” She relates that the staff of the Fenwick Library was particularly helpful in tracking down a photograph of their days at Mason.

“I, for some reason or another, missed the picture taking almost every year of the yearbook,” she explains. “The last year, they took a picture of us . . . because I was student teaching at Robert Frost Junior High School and wasn’t there when they took pictures. We’d ordered a yearbook, but I don’t believe we actually got it. We hadn’t seen it yet. So we went over to the library and they helped us find it.”

Asked for advice appropriate to someone who is starting out, Tom suggests that there may not be one piece of counsel that fits every situation. “Different things work for different people. Individuals need to figure out the path that makes sense for them,” he says.

Helen agrees and stresses flexibility. “I would give advice to follow your heart, and do something you think you can be happy with . . . You know, ‘Do what you want to do,’ doesn’t mean that the circumstances along the way will always be to your liking. But if you keep your eyes on where you want to go and keep your eyes open for opportunities, you can get through those hardships pretty well, I think.”