Florence Foster, 92, pioneering court reporter

Florence M. Kille Foster, 92, formerly of Mount Airy, the first woman court reporter in Philadelphia, died last Friday at the Artman Lutheran Home in Ambler.

Mrs. Foster was certified to report court testimony in Philadelphia in 1937, when all the other reporters were male. She had graduated from Collingswood High School and from Strayer's Business College in Philadelphia. There, she was in the first class to use the new stenotype machine, which replaced shorthand reporting. For years, a photo of her seated at the machine ran with Strayer's newspaper ads.

Mrs. Foster met her future husband, Harry J. Foster, at Strayer's. They married in 1941. While she raised a family, she worked as a freelance court reporter, with her mother and mother-in-law helping care for her six children. In 1968, she and her husband established Foster Court Reporting Service. They applied a shortcut method of notation called the Philadelphia Clinic, which Harry Foster had developed in the 1950s.

Mrs. Foster was active with the National Shorthand Reporters Association and the Pennsylvania Shorthand Reporters Association, which honored her in 1988 with its Frank Wright Memorial Award for Distinguished Service.

In the 1970s, the Fosters visited court reporters in several countries in the Soviet bloc on a trip sponsored by the International Court Reporters Association.

The couple mentored many young people, their son James said. In recognition of the Fosters' contributions to their field, they received the Aurelio Award for Altruism from the National Court Reporters Foundation in 2002.

Mrs. Foster and her husband retired in 1994, and moved to Delray Beach, Fla., where she edited the newsletter for their condominium association. She moved to Ambler in 2003, a year after her husband died.

In addition to her son James, Mrs. Foster is survived by another son, Anthony; daughters Suzanne Hynes, Marianne Monteleone, Madalene Rohde and Rosemary Anderson; a sister; 14 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today at St. Therese of the Child Jesus Roman Catholic Church, 6611 Ardleigh St., Philadelphia, where friends may call after 9. Burial will be in St. Mary's Cemetery, Bellmawr.