Two of Banton Foster’s children will remember him most for his sense of adventure and profound acceptance and love for people, especially his children.
Foster died after suffering injuries in a fire that ripped through an Old Town apartment complex on Sunday morning. He was 71.
The state’s fire marshal’s office found that improperly discarded smoking material caused the fire, which was ruled accidental, Shannon Moss, a Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson, said Monday.
Among the loved ones Foster leaves behind are six adult children who live in Maine, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington: Chelsea Henderson, 54; Nathan Henderson, 51; Sarah Foster, 49; Banton Foster Jr., 41; Meghann Foster, 38; and Flaherty Foster, 23.
“I think all families have complicated relationships, but that doesn’t mean there is any lack of love,” said Meghann Foster, who resides in Maine. “He loved all of his children deeply. And he might have said we were his biggest accomplishments.”
Banton Foster was an avid cross-country skier. He adored the woods and would sometimes go on mid-winter expeditions to Katahdin, Banton Foster Jr. said. He was also proud of the family’s New England heritage, and when his son moved away, his advice was: “Always tell people you’re from Maine.”
Sarah Foster remembers that he loved animals, and he used to skijor with his Samoyed, flying past his children and jovially yelling, “Mush!”
Meghann Foster’s childhood was filled with beach trips, biking and hiking when her father had days off in the summer. He participated in ice skating and igloo building in the cold months, she said.
Banton Foster once built a treehouse for his children, which started as a single platform and grew into a two-story structure complete with French doors, a bay window, wood stove, small deck, ceiling fan and electricity.
“My dad didn’t know how to not take things to an extreme,” she said.
Banton Foster was born in New Hampshire, but he moved with his parents and siblings to Oakland, Maine, when he was fairly young. They settled in Old Town, the city where his mother grew up, when he was 10 or 11 years old.
He had three brothers, including a half-brother, and a sister, though only one of them remains alive, Meghann Foster said.
During his adult life, Banton Foster moved to California. He and his former wife, Inese Foster, returned to Maine in 1981. From 1987 to 1999, Banton Foster owned and operated a pool remodeling business in Massachusetts. He lived with his family in Old Town, but he commuted to work during pool season.
“His pool remodeling business was quite successful at its height,” his son said. “If you had a pool built in the Boston area in the ’80s [and] ’90s, there’s a good chance he plastered it.”
Nathan Henderson became his right-hand man, Sarah Foster said, and she was able to work alongside her father on some of the most lavish estates in New England in the late 1990s.
He had previously been married to Jo-Ann Mitchell, who is Sarah Foster’s mother. They weren’t together long, but early in their relationship, they headed west and fought forest fires in Montana before moving to California, Sarah Foster said.
Banton Foster Jr.’s greatest memory of his father was at his older sister’s graduation from Boston University, during which Fred Rogers was the commencement speaker. The ceremony ended, people filed out of the building, and Banton Foster led his children through the crowd, shouting, “Mr Rogers! Mr. Rogers!”
Rogers, headed to his car, stopped for a moment. Banton Foster Jr. recalls his breathless father saying, “Hello, Mr. Rogers, thank you for everything. I just wanted my kids to meet you,” he told him. “And that’s how we got to shake Mr. Rogers’ hand.”
Banton Foster’s biggest hobby was collecting Currier and Ives prints and glass paperweights, among other antiques. One of the qualities that Meghann Foster adored most about him was his ability to accept people as they were, without judgment. He had friends of all backgrounds and origins and was only judgmental of the cruel and cynical, her brother added.
He instilled in his children the importance of sit-down dinners with the family, and Christmas celebrations at his house are some of Sarah Foster’s fondest memories, she said. Banton Foster once woke his kids at 2 a.m. on Christmas so they could have a rousing snowball fight in their pajamas.
“In my adult life, my dad called me often,” Meghann Foster said. “I missed those calls a lot, but every voicemail he left always ended in, ‘I love you.’ That’s something I will never forget. You never hung up the phone without an ‘I love you.’”