Esphur and Harold Foster - On their family home (clip)
Interviewed by Hudson Vaughan on April 1, 2010
Harold Vaughan: So how long have y’all lived in this, this neighborhood? Esphur Foster: Seventy years.
HV: Your whole life.
EF: Yeah. We have, we had a cookout one night and we brought all of our, a lot of old pictures out and were showing them to everyone at the cookout. We got and left them out, and it rained. And one of them was… this place was just a field, and it was a picture of mother and me on a blanket. It was my first birthday, she had baked me a cake and it had one little candle in the middle of it. And my sister we lived at 506 Cottage Street which is straight down but on the same side of the road. And she was born there. And I’m not sure if my brother was born there or whether he was born at Duke. I was born on Sunset Drive.
HV: You were on Sunset. So y’all just moved down the neighborhood.
EF: Yeah, uh-huh, yeah that’s right.
HV: So technically at that point those were different neighborhoods. One was Sunset and this was Potters Field, is that right?
EF: Yes, right, mm-hm, yes.
HV: And the separation point was, it starts with an “M” right here wasn’t it.
EF: Mitchell Lane.
HV: Mitchell! Is that the dividing?
EF: Yeah, yeah, yep, that’s right.
HV: And there were rivalries between them, is that?
EF: Mm-hm.
HV: Especially in baseball?
EF: Everything.
HV: Everything, mmm.
EF: Everything. Academic, sports, music, all that, everything.
HV: So there are three of y’all, three siblings.
EF: Mm-hm, yeah.
HV: And you’re the…are you the oldest?
EF: I’m the oldest.
HV: Oldest of three.
EF: My sisters next, and he’s the baby.
HV: So what was this neighborhood like growing up?
EF: Oh my goodness. There were children and dogs and cats everywhere. Always laughter and fun. Sneaking out the yard when your parents were going to work. Quarter to three slipping back in….
