Steven Foster was hitchhiking in Izard County one June day in the early 1980s when a man pulled over and told him to hop in. During an hour-long ride Steven pointed out purple coneflowers blooming on the side of the highway, and told the man their botanical name, echinacea purpurea.
Steven then explained the medicinal properties and different uses of a wild plant that he insisted on pronouncing ek-in-A-see-uh.
When the driver got Steven where he was going – Fox, Arkansas, southwest of Mountain View – the man said, “You should write a book about what you just told me.”
And Steven did.
Then he wrote 18 more books, all of them revealing the history, rumor, medicinal properties, descriptions, dosages, seasons, cultivation, natural habitat, folklore, idiosyncrasies and sensitivities of herbs. To make sure we knew what he was talking about, he took thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures of herbs looking good in the ground.
When Steven was in high school in Portland, Maine, his senior class took a field trip to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community. He was enchanted with the Shaker Library, packed with journals, correspondence, maps, recipes and herbal prescriptions going back to the early 1800s.
He wanted to stay there, he wanted access to information provided by those who took the time to write it down, but had never published it. Sabbathday Lake is where he learned about Thomsonian medicine, the practitioners who resisted allopathic, or modern, medicine.
The Thomsonians opposed the danger and drama of using “copious amounts of mercury” in preparations. They also deplored the corporatization of medicine – 170 years ago.
After high school graduation, Steven moved to Sabbathday Lake and worked for room and board. He cut and split firewood, stacked it to age, then hustled it up three flight of stairs three times a day to keep the austere Shakers warm.
The Shakers made their money by hand carving boxes, tables and chairs, but Steven worked in their herb fields. He was touched by herbs and they by him. They seemed to react to his voice and pose for his pictures.
But Shakers were self-denying, and Steven was not. He fell in love and followed a woman to Santa Cruz, California, where he got dumped, but where he also became director of the Herb Garden Project.
Then he found Arkansas. He had no money, but he had a supple brain that fed his organized mind. He collected information, storing and remembering and sharing his findings, because he was so intrigued with herbs and their routines.
He learned so much about an entirely different kingdom, plantae, that from 1987 to Covid, he was sought after as a speaker and teacher on every continent except Antarctica. Although he gave lectures to experts, he never went to college.
One of his first public speaking engagements was sponsored by a chemical company in Joplin. He was anxious about wearing, or even finding, a necktie. He was apprehensive about speaking to chemical researchers. He couldn’t stop sweating. When his talk was finished, he got a full 60 seconds of enthusiastic applause.
I only know that because I was working for him at the time, in his house on Blue Spring Rd. He said he would pay me the usual $5 an hour for the extra five hours it took to get Joplin, speak, and come home, so Yes!
Worst. Driver. Ever.
He knew what the gas and brake pedals were for but hadn’t quite mastered the steering wheel. He treated it more like a fly swatter – be surprising and firm, and when that doesn’t work, do it again.
Oh, Steven Foster. I’m looking at the bookends you gave me for my birthday. I’m drinking coffee from the cup you replaced when your arms flailed about and broke mine because you were livid about George W. Bush invading Iraq. I’ve got your books, pictures of you, pictures of us, and I expect you to text me any moment to see if we can go to dinner.
I love that when Bush was elected you put a bumper sticker on your Toyota saying, “I Miss Bill.”
I miss your appetite. I miss your raised right eyebrow. I miss telling you to put your phone down.
I don’t think I’m the only person in the world who feels this way.
I think the whole world feels this way.
You affected people, also, you know.