WELCOME TO FOSTER'S COTTAGE ON WHITMORE ROAD, BOONE COUNTY, IOWA
Hello. I'm Greg Foster and I currently live in this house on seven and a half acres next to the Des Moines River in Central Iowa, near the town of Madrid. It's a modified Cape Cod style home built in 1932 by my grandfather Segil Foster and his father Ernest Foster. My father Ted and uncle Ernie grew up in this house, while I was born and raised in California in a suburb of San Francisco and spent some of my summers here as a child with my grandparents Segil and Marie. The name Whitmore Road comes from Art Whitmore who was the first person to build a house here where the road dead ends at the river, shortly after the railroad went through in 1912. Years ago the road was turned over to Boone County and given the imaginative name of QF Lane, but I still use the old name Whitmore which to my ear sounds much better. The road is gravel, about half a mile long, and intersects Hwy 210 about 2 miles west of Madrid. I think there are 14 or so houses on the road now with properties of 5 to 200 acres, three of which have horses. There are two veterans of the Second World War living on the road, one of whom is the legendary Iowa mushroom gatherer and deer hunter known locally by his nickname of Toad. The town of madrid and the surrounding homes are bedroom communities of the cities of Boone, Ames, and the state capital Des Moines, the latter two being about a 20 minute commute by car.