Robert Ware Foster, 94, of East Walpole, Massachusetts, died November 29, 2014. He was a life-long resident of East Walpole and graduated from Walpole High School. During World War II, he volunteered to serve in the United States Army and was trained as a combat radio technician. Assigned to the 168th Smoke Generator Company, he took part in the invasions of North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. He was awarded two Purple Hearts for wounds received in combat. For his part in a rescue mission of French soldiers, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre avec Palme, the French Foreign Legion’s highest honor, and later for the same mission, the Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Legion d’Honneur from the French government. After the war, he was a proud member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and L’Association Rhin and Danube, a French veteran’s organization.
Mr. Foster received a Bachelor of Science from Boston University, a Master of Education from Bridgewater State College and a Juris Doctor from Suffolk Law School. After graduating from Boston University, he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers in New England.
Devoted to the common good and civic involvement, he served the town of Walpole through the years as a Representative Town Meeting member, as a member of the Conservation Commission and as a Selectman. An early conservationist before it became fashionable, Mr. Foster was a founding member of the Traphole Brook Protection Association.
For 32 years, Mr. Foster was married to Almerinda (Carvalho) Foster who died in 1993. In 2005, he married Barbara (Kennedy) Creasman who died in 2009. He is survived by his daughter, Melody Bentley, and her husband, Randall Bentley, three grandsons, Preston, Jonathan and Robert Bentley, and many dear relatives and friends.
Visiting hours will be held Thursday, December 4, 2014, from 6 to 8 PM, at the Ginley Funeral Home, 892 Main Street, Walpole. A funeral service will be held Friday, December 5, 2014, at 11 AM at the Union Congregational Church, 55 Rhoades Avenue, East Walpole, MA.
Interment will be private.
In lieu of flowers expressions of sympathy may be made in his memory to the Wounded Warrior Project.,PO Box 758517, Topeka,KS.66675.