Faces at the Mount
Elaine Foster still passing the white glove test
Elaine FosterOccupation: Housekeeper in the Retreat Center Family: Husband, Terry, a land surveyor for Hale, Riney and Gilmore, married 22 years; two daughters, Samantha, 19, Leslie, 17, a junior at Apollo High School. Address: Saint Joseph Education: Graduate of Mount Saint Joseph Academy, 1977 Tenure at the Mount: 19 years Favorite thing to do: Spend time with her family. |
When Elaine Foster was growing up just three miles from Mount Saint Joseph, her grandmother would line her up with her six brothers and two sisters and perform the “white glove test” to see if the children had done sufficient cleaning around the house.
Sister Amelia Stenger and Elaine Foster outside the Conference and Retreat Center. |
These days, Elaine believes she could still pass her grandmother’s test. That’s a good thing, since her job is to keep the bedrooms at the Mount Saint Joseph Conference and Retreat Center clean.
“If I’m going to do it, I prefer to do it right,” Elaine said. “If I go to a hotel, I’m kind of picky.”
Doing her job well is not something Sister Amelia Stenger, director of the Center, has to worry about with Elaine.
“People who stay here say this is the cleanest place they’ve ever seen,” Sister Amelia said. “I never have to tell her to do anything. She’s dedicated, loyal and trustworthy.”
Her job is to clean all the bedroom areas – 79 beds in 35 individual rooms and two dorms – including windows, bathrooms and stairwells. Trena Goetz cleans the public areas of the Center.
“I don’t have people running in and out like at home,” Elaine said. If guests are staying in the rooms, she’ll check bathrooms and trashcans, but otherwise won’t go into a room unless asked.
“Elaine is gentle with everybody and willing to do anything,” Sister Amelia said.
That includes helping out in the kitchen when asked.
“She’s very gifted in working in the food area,” said Merritt Hobbs, the Center’s chef. “She can cook, is an excellent baker and excellent decorator. She’s just got a lot of ability.”
Elaine enjoys working alone while making a bed in a Center dorm room. |
School days, first job
Elaine grew up on the Daviess-McLean county line.
“I went to school at St. Joseph and went to high school at the (Mount Saint Joseph) Academy,” she said. “I took music lessons here in grade school,” from Sister Mary Durr. The music department was where the offices are in the Center.
She didn’t realize then how going to an all-girls school shaped her outlook.
“I was exposed to girls of all nationalities,” she said. “There was a girl from China, two from El Salvador, one from Africa and others from all over the U.S. It gave you a little perspective on what the world really does have to offer.”
Unlike some of her classmates, she never considered becoming a sister. Two of her fellow 1977 graduates are Ursulines, Sisters Larraine Lauter and Dianna Ortiz.
After graduation, she went to work at Carhartt in Sebree as a bundler and material matcher. During that time she met her future husband, Terry. He was dating her cousin, but the two met at a mall, and six months later he called to ask her out. The two have been together ever since.
Coming to the Mount
She spent 12 years at Carharrt, leaving when her first child, Samantha, was born. She was doing some babysitting when she learned there was an opening in the kitchen at Mount Saint Joseph. Elaine’s youngest sister worked at the Mount in the infirmary, and her sister-in-law, Audrey Clouse, did also.
“I started out in the diet kitchen, fixing meals for the sisters with special diets in the infirmary,” Elaine said. “Then they merged it into one big kitchen.
“I worked the evening shift, delivered trays to the sisters, washed dishes,” Elaine said. “When I started, all the sisters worked washing dishes. Eventually it became my job.”
While the Retreat Center was renovating, its kitchen was moved to the Motherhouse. “They were looking for someone to run the Motherhouse kitchen and Merritt told me I could do it,” Elaine said. “But they wanted someone with more credentials, so I understood that.”
When the job opened in housekeeping at the Center in 1988, Elaine took it. “I still get called to the kitchen a lot here, whenever they need somebody.”
Merritt said he saw much ability in Elaine.
“She’s very good at what she does, very thorough,” he said. “She likes what she does and she’ll do anything you ask her to do.”
A tough year
This has been a trying year for Elaine and her family. Her father has been in the hospital since Jan. 31, with two amputations on his leg, and family members take turns staying with him. Her oldest daughter, Samantha, 19, helps take care of him during the day and stays with Elaine’s mother at night.
“The physical therapists have shown her what to do,” Elaine said. Her father-in-law died earlier this year.
Her favorite part of her job is working by herself, and the flexibility of the schedule she has.
“With my dad, the times I have to be off, I can work a long day and then a short day,” she said.
Audrey Clouse and Elaine visit by the fountain outside the Conference and Retreat Center. |
Audrey, now a health care driver in Saint Joseph Villa, said family has always been important to Elaine.
“I’ve known her 38 or 39 years,” Audrey said, since she first started dating Elaine’s brother, Mike. “She’s someone you can always go and talk to. With family and whoever she works with, she’s very devoted.”
Audrey and Mike have been married for 35 years. “When I first met Mike, (Elaine) was a little tot. She always had a smile on her face.”
Family gatherings bring the two together away from the Mount
“We cook, we clean, play games, watch everybody else’s kids,” Audrey said.
In her spare time, Elaine said she mostly spends time with her family. Both of her daughters live at home. Samantha would like to be a veterinarian, while 17-year-old Leslie, a junior at Apollo High School, wants to be a journalist.
She and Terry entertained the notion of moving to Owensboro, but her daughters opposed it, preferring to stay at the farmhouse near Elaine’s parents. “My dad and brothers are farmers, my girls end up doing a lot on the farm,” Elaine said.
Audrey said Elaine is very artistic.
“She can paint, arrange flowers, and make cakes,” Audrey said.
Elaine said when she was going to school at the Academy, she had no strong desire to work at the Mount someday, but it remains a focal point of her life.
“When our girls were smaller, we’d pack a picnic and let the girls roll down the hill, or let them fish in the lake,” Elaine said. “We had my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in the gym, and my wedding reception in the gym.”
She has no plans to leave.
“I’ll probably stay here until I die or they close the doors,” she said with a smile.
- By Dan Heckel