Biography
Foster has stated that since the age of 13 he has desired three things: 1) to be a monk, 2) to be a priest, and 3) to work with Latin. Foster grew up in a family of plumbers (his father, brothers, and uncles are plumbers). He went to junior seminary in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he fell in love with Latin. He would sit in the library with Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary, fascinated by the entries.
Foster went to Rome in the early 1960s to study. He also taught German. He is fluent in Latin, German, Italian, and his native English.
Foster continues to suffer serious health complications resulting from a fall in June 2008, and was admitted on January 17, 2009, into the Fate Bene Fratelli Hospital on the Tiber Island. After a grueling several months spent mostly in intensive care, during which Foster narrowly avoided death, he finally recovered enough to be taken to the United States, where he is to recuperate and receive physical therapy at Clement Manor. Due to his injuries, Foster canceled his Summer Latin program for 2009, but now intends to resume classes in the USA in 2010 (see below). In 2010 he joined the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia the president of which, Stephen Blackwood, is a former Aestiva Romae Latinitas student. He currently lives in Greenfield, WI.
Read more about this topic: Reginald Foster (Latinist)
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