She was born as Rebecca Salome Elliott on October 24, 1848, in
Alabama, the daughter of planter John Howard Elliott and his wife Margaret Adele (née Blue). Her parents likely moved to New York before or during the war, perhaps having been one of those planter families who had close ties with people in the city through business. During the last year of the
Civil War, at the age of 19 Rebecca Elliot married
Union colonel and attorney
John Armstrong Foster (March 5, 1833 – February 11, 1890) The newly married couple lived in New York City. In later life, John Foster suffered from
alcoholism, lost his friends, and abandoned his family in 1888. Foster initially supported herself and her daughters from her pay working for the Presbyterian City Mission Society of New York. After John Foster abandoned the family, she wore the black
mourning clothes of a widow when in public. Foster eventually worked on her own as a volunteer with prisoners in the "Tombs". Besides ministering to the needs of the incarcerated pending trial, she had gained considerable respect from government officials. She acted as an unofficial court investigator and advisor, trying to ascertain the facts of each inmate's case and giving her judgment as to whether the person was innocent or guilty of charges. She also worked to support former prisoners in their lives after they were released, taking a role as a kind of
ad hoc "
probation officer" well before that formal system was established in New York in 1901. In later life Rebecca Salome Foster lived as a resident at the Park Avenue Hotel. At the age of 54, she was one of at least 14 people who died in the fire there on February 22, 1902. Her funeral at Calvary Church was attended by a large crowd that spanned many classes. She was buried in the same plot as her husband and his parents at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. One tombstone monument is inscribed with all four of their names and dates. ==Legacy and honors==