![]() ![]() “They built it from a dozen loaves of bread the first day.” They ended up, she said, “owning a lot of Foster Park.” “They knew nothing about business, absolutely zilch,” Getman said. Getman’s parents, Virginia and Gene Boles, bought the market in 1951 and ran it until they were bought out by the state in 1965. “I would sit on the lions to make a connection to reality,” she said, “because Foster Park was an unreal place.” It was from there that she made regular pilgrimages to the stone lions at the park entrance. Jeanne Getman lived behind the market when she was a child. “The worst thing they ever did in the state of California,” she said, “was get rid of that town.” Though she had long since left Foster Park by the time the freeway moved in, Davis protested the development ardently. “Of course, all of us young girls were absolutely thrilled,” Davis said. “He used the old line, ‘What are you doing in a town like this?’ ”Īnd she met servicemen bivouacked at the park during World War II. “He came in and was twiddling around,” she said. Of course nobody could inhale.”Īnd working at the store provided Davis the opportunity to meet lots of people, including her future husband, Larry, to whom she has been married for 44 years. “All the smoke coming out from under the bridge looked like the damn bridge was on fire. “Since my dad had a grocery store, I could steal packs of cigarettes,” said Davis. There were some advantages to being a shopkeeper’s daughter. “My father’s nickname was ‘the Mayor of Foster Park.’ I don’t think we ever sold much bubble gum, he was always giving it to the kids.” Every kid in Foster Park loved those great big dill pickles,” said Davis, who left Foster Park at about age 13. Jean Davis, whose parents Ray and Inez Roberson owned the market from 1941 until 1945, spent many hours helping out at the store. The Corner Market, now standing on Burnham Road in Oak View, is the market’s successor. The market changed hands over the years, but was always integral to the town. Much of the reminiscing revolves around Foster Park Market, the community’s central gathering place through 1965. It takes awhile to stir their memories, but once these folks get talking about their old stomping ground, common themes surface. But by now the former residents of Foster Park are resigned to the fact that the town exists only in their minds and in the rare photo. Miles isn’t the only one who holds a grudge. I don’t call it the end of the freeway, I still call it Foster Park. “I drive up and down there on a daily basis. “I drove by and saw the bulldozer and I cried.”īud Miles, who spent his teen-age years in Foster Park, remembers it as a friendly community. My mother’s house was one of the first,” she said. It was the day they started tearing the houses down. She was one of three generations of Pluims to grow up in Foster Park.Īguilar remembers seeing the old family home getting knocked down. That palm tree was behind the home of Mary Ann Aguilar (nee Pluim). And only a 37-year-old palm tree that once adorned a back yard remains from the 50 or so residences that once made up the east side of town. Homes still exist on the west side of Foster Park as well as the outdoor amphitheather, but only traces-bits of the gas station and a back wall of the cafe-remain of what was the business area. ![]() A final plan to route the freeway through town was approved a month later. And the loss of county tax revenue from the loss of the property would amount to about $6,000 annually. The assessor’s office valued the property in Foster Park, at the time, at $85,000. Originally the plan was to run the freeway along the hillside east of town, which likely would have saved the main thoroughfare.īut according to a January, 1965, report by the Ventura County Department of Public Works, the proposed realignment of the freeway extension through town was expected to save about $376,000 over the cost of going through a hillside. ![]() “Oh God, would it be a mess now without (the highway).” It has been since the oil fields went in,” said developer Robert Nye, who worked on the freeway. ![]()
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