Biography

Eleanor Eidson Foster (1920-2014) was born at a farmhouse on the Eidson Mill property adjacent to Roswell Road in what is now the North Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. Ms. Foster is the granddaughter of William Jefferson Eidson, Sr., the proprietor of Eidson Mill in the early 1920s. She lived on the property with her parents, William Jefferson Eidson, Jr. and Alice Louise Ivey Eidson, until she was about two years old. The family then moved to a residence on Old Ivy Road, which Ms. Foster called home until 1940. Ms. Foster attended R. L. Hope Grammar School and North Fulton High School. She later worked as a bookkeeper at Puritan Mills in Atlanta from 1940 to 1952. From 1952 to 1967, she served as a bookkeeper for Lagerquist Insurance Company in Atlanta. She subsequently worked as a bookkeeper and finance manager for Southeastern Securities Insurance Company in Atlanta until 2003. She married Eugene Lamar Foster and had one son, William Lamar Foster. Ms. Foster is a direct descendent granddaughter of Henry Irby in the Eugene Russell Ivey family line.

Abstract of Interview

Ms. Foster discusses the Eidson mill and farmhouse adjacent to Roswell Road and today’s Lakemoore Drive where she was born in 1920. She recalls Buckhead landmarks that she frequented including the Donaldson store, the Buckhead Theatre, Mooney’s Lake, Tidwell’s Barbecue, and other stores in the Buckhead village. She also recalls the blacksmith shop that was located behind the Buckhead Theatre on Irby Avenue. She describes R. L. Hope School and her teachers there and briefly discusses her experience at North Fulton High School. She talks at length about Sardis church, which she attended for most of her life, and the new congregation of St. John United Methodist Church that split from Sardis church in the early 1960s. She also talks about her experience as a working mom and how the proliferation of computers finally convinced her to retire.

Interview conducted by Erica Danylchak and Nancy Jones, November 29, 2012.

Read the transcript.

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