Elise Foster

Elise Trapp Foster, widow of Colonel Walter Neal “Dugan” Foster (USAF Ret.) and daughter of Clyde Howell Trapp and Henry Buckheister Trapp died Monday, January 27, 2020. She was a granddaughter of William Richburg and Samantha Spann Buckheister and Howell Bookman and Lucy White Trapp. A Celebration of Life Service will be held 2 o'clock, Saturday, February 1, 2020, in Smith Chapel of First Presbyterian Church, 1420 Washington Street, Columbia, SC. The Rev. David H. Lauten and The Rev. Dr. Mark Ross will officiate. Shives Funeral Home, Trenholm Road Chapel, is assisting the family. Elise was born in Columbia on November 13, 1940. She attended Hyatt Park Elementary, Eau Claire High School, Furman University in Greenville, and received her Master in English Education from Georgia State in Atlanta. She taught school in Columbia and Atlanta where she coached the girls’ and boys’ tennis teams. She also worked from 1997 to 2000 in Romania and The Czech Republic for a Canadian cellphone startup company where she developed policy and procedure for company ethics and conduct, set up a corporate library, and developed sales training for the emerging regions. More recently she became very devoted to their family farm where they raise hay and Christmas trees and where their son and his wife lived for many years with her precious grandchildren. Elise and Dugan raised two sons, Neal English Foster and Mark Howell Foster. Dugan’s military duty and his career with BellSouth moved the family from Okinawa to Colorado to New Jersey to Columbia and back to New Jersey, and then Charleston and Atlanta before finally returning to Columbia in 1989. In her younger days, she made frequent trips to Europe with family and friends. While working in Eastern Europe she and Dugan visited many interesting places such as Istanbul, Cairo, and Budapest. Elise enjoyed tennis and golf, snow skiing and entertaining, and crossword puzzles and bridge. She volunteered at the Veteran’s Hospital in New Jersey, the Historical Society in Charleston, the Richland County Public Library, and was a member of the Columbia Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution since 1975. She also taught Sunday school at Forest Lake Presbyterian and served as treasurer of the Women of the Church at First Presbyterian where she and Dugan were members of the John Knox Sunday School class. Elise is survived by her son Mark and his wife Tina, her grandchildren Sara Louise, David Walter, Rebecca Paige, and John Howell. She is also survived by her niece Susan Moore Gardner and nephew Marshall Trapp Moore, and her Goddaughters Alexandra M. Tudor of Basel, Switzerland, and Elena Diana Frick of Winnsboro. She is also survived by her special childhood friends Bonnie Hammond, Dianne Lemacks, Kay Hunter, and Linda Dickerson. She was predeceased by her husband, her parents, her grandparents, her son Neal, her brother Clyde Howell Trapp, Jr., and her sister Virginia Trapp Moore. Elise has requested that in lieu of flowers or memorials that you honor her memory by supporting the Video Streaming Ministry of First Presbyterian Church, 1324 Marion Street, Columbia, SC 29201.

Tributes

Elise Foster

November 13, 1940 - January 27, 2020