Mary L. Foster
Cite this Page
"Mary L. Foster," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/917.
- Position
- Lady's Maid
- Years in President's House
- 1933
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- Black or African American
- Presidency
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Biography
- Mary Louise Foster was born around 1896 in Kentucky. In the early 1920s, she began working as personal maid to Eleanor Roosevelt and later accompanied her to the Governor’s Mansion in Albany, New York during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time as governor. (1) In 1933, Mrs. Roosevelt brought Mary Foster to the White House; she lived on the Third Floor and continued to serve as personal maid to the first lady. In this role, she tended to the first lady’s clothing and accessories, took on various errands, and traveled with Mrs. Roosevelt on all of her trips. (2) Foster took ill and died unexpectedly on December 14, 1933. According to her obituary, “Mrs. Roosevelt is quoted as having requested no pains nor expense be spared in the attention given Miss Foster during her illness and in the funeral arrangements.” (3) With Christmas just around the corner, maid Lillian Rogers Parks recalled: “Mrs. Roosevelt cried openly as she finished wrapping the gifts that Mary had left undone.” (4) Foster was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. (5)
- (1) Mary Foster in the 1930 United States Federal Census, Year: 1930; Census Place: Albany, Albany, New York; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 0066; FHL microfilm: 2341138, Ancestry.com; “Mary Louise Foster, Personal Maid to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dead; Funeral at St. James Church, White House Sends Wreath,” The New York Age, December 23, 1933, pg. 1.
(2) “Roosevelt to Take Servants to Capital,” The Oklahoma News (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma), December 25, 1932, pg. 10; Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil (Prentice-Hall, 1981), pg. 43; “Mrs. Roosevelt Picked Her Own White House Servants,” The Afro-American (Baltimore, Maryland), September 13, 1933, pg. 17.
(3) “Mary Louise Foster, Personal Maid to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dead; Funeral at St. James Church, White House Sends Wreath,” The New York Age, December 23, 1933, pg. 1.
(4) Lillian Rogers Parks, My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House (Fleet Publishing Co., 1961), pg. 264; “Executive Adds Human Touch to Festivities,” The State (Columbia, South Carolina), December 25, 1933, pg. 1.
(5) “Mary Louise Foster, Personal Maid to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dead; Funeral at St. James Church, White House Sends Wreath,” The New York Age, December 23, 1933, pg. 1; “Maid of Mrs. Roosevelt Passes Away,” The Chicago Defender (Chicago, Illinois), December 23, 1933, pg. 13. - Birthplace
- Kentucky, USA
- Related Association Content
- https://www.whitehousehistory.org/staff-at-the-roosevelt-household