In this episode of Second Chances with Christy Belz, we explore the inspiring life of Senator Joyce Foster. Joyce recounts her serendipitous meeting with her husband, Steve, a rabbi of 40 years and their dynamic partnership, highlighted in their co-authored book, “The Rabbi and the Senator Sleep Together.” She delves into her vibrant experiences in 1960s Chicago, her impactful political career, and her unwavering dedication to public service, including her efforts in resettling refugees and advocating for women’s rights.
In a candid segment, Joyce opens up about the challenges of aging and her continued commitment to personal growth and community activism. This episode is a heartfelt celebration of Joyce Foster’s remarkable life, brimming with wisdom, love and a lasting legacy of activism.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- Joyce’s engagement with her husband within five hours of meeting.
- Co-authored book, “The Rabbi and the Senator Sleep Together.”
- Resettling refugees through Jewish Family Service.
- Served as a senator, focusing on local government issues.
- Aging and memory concerns.
- Strong proponent of women’s political engagement and reproductive rights.
- Personal stories highlighting the value of women’s autonomy over their bodies.
- Deep bond with grandchildren.
- The need for family and love throughout the journey.
Learn more about Joyce Foster:
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/joyce-foster-1a944710
Book: http://www.therabbiandsenatorsleeptogether.com/
Learn more about Christy Belz Social Communications:
Website: https://christybelz.com/influencer/oh-god-of-second-chances-here-i-am-again/
Course: https://christybelz.com/uproot/
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Christy: Hi and welcome to Second Chances with Christy Belz podcast. I’m your host, Christy Belz. Enjoy our array of talented, open-hearted guests and their thoughtfully curated stories of second chances, life-changing choices, and new perspectives. We are here to empower you on second chances in your life.
00:00:37 Christy: Well, welcome. Oh my gosh, I say this every single time, but I can’t even tell you how excited I am for this guest in this segment or series on sage wisdom. Today we have Senator Joyce Foster with us. And I met Joyce years ago because I moved into a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood here in Denver called the Lowry community and Joyce’s son and daughter in law live next door to us. And we had babies at the same time. Yeah, so Joyce’s granddaughter and my son are the same age. And we had several families in that cul-de-sac who all had children. So we called it the party sack.
00:01:19 Joyce: Oh, it was wonderful.
00:01:20 Christy: It was so fun.
00:01:21 Joyce: It was so much fun.
00:01:22 Christy: So much fun.
00:01:22 Joyce: And I was the grandmother.
00:01:23 Christy: You were the grandmother. You were for all of our children. So that was so wonderful. So I am delighted to have Joyce here. She is one remarkable woman. She’s full of sage wisdom and I’m going to give you just a little of her accolades, then I’m going to have her share her story with you. And then we’ll break and then we’ll give you a little bit of sage wisdom from this very amazing, remarkable woman.
00:01:44 Christy: So Joyce has a book. I just have to say, I find it hilarious because, you know, I’m funny. Oh God, if, second chances, here I am again. I think that’s funny. Her book title is The Rabbi and the Senator Sleep Together. Now, if that isn’t good and juicy, I don’t know what is. Marrying Religion and Politics.
00:02:01 Christy: So Joyce is formally with the Jewish Family Services, she was with that organization for a very long time. And she went on to become the very first Jewish city council representative in the city of Denver and went on to be the president of the city council. And at that time we were living in Lowry and my husband was doing some development work. And so I got to know Joyce both as the grandmother of the children in the party sack and as the city council representative for some of the work she was doing in her community. More accolades for Joyce.
00:02:37 Christy: She went on to become a state senator, has done remarkable work in the community, continues to do remarkable work with her husband, Steve, who was the rabbi of 40 years for a Jewish temple here, again, in the area of Denver. So I’m just so delighted to have this remarkable woman here to share some sage wisdom and her journey. Her journey.
00:02:57 Joyce: Thank you.
00:02:59 Christy: Yeah, so I always like my guest just to say, you know, did you say you’re 80 now?
00:03:03 Joyce: I’m 80. I turned 80 in February.
00:03:06 Christy: 80 in February. And I just love this. Joyce reached out to me and she said, you know, I might have some wisdom to share on your podcast. And I’m like, hell yeah. Come on, Joyce. I had to pull her a couple of times to get her on, but.
00:03:16 Joyce: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
00:03:17 Christy: Yeah, the good, and the bad, and the ugly. Yeah, so I would just love for you to share with our guests just a little bit about your journey. Tell us where you came from, what got you. Well, wait, before I said that, I was doing some homework and I was reading the intro to your book. And I love that you said when you and Steve wrote this book, that Rabbi and the Senator Sleep Together, you said, we are going to tell the whole picture. We’re sharing the whole picture.
00:03:40 Christy: And I want you to know, I really value and appreciate you saying that and doing that, because the vulnerability that I know you shared in this book and what I shared in my book, not easy to do. It’s not easy to kind of put it out there of what we’ve been through. So I just want to honor you for that.
00:03:57 Joyce: Thank you for your vulnerability.
00:03:58 Christy: Thank you, sweetheart. You’re just delicious. Yeah, well, delicious. Go for it. Joyce, tell us about you. Where’d you come from? What got you to this point?
00:04:07 Joyce: I grew up in a city called Benton Harbor, Michigan. And it’s a city of about, between 20 and 30,000 people. I don’t know who counts there. And Benton Harbor was a twin city to St. Joseph. On the Benton Harbor side, when I was growing up, was more African American and lower economic class. And on the St. Joseph side, you belong to the yacht club perhaps, or the country club, but you couldn’t be black and move into St. Joe. That was absolutely not happening.
00:04:46 Joyce: My parents, it was my grandparents’ home. And when my father grew up, Benton Harbor was a beautiful old city and there was plenty of money. My father grew up with plenty of money and then his family lost it during the depression. In fact, my father was accepted to write to go into journalism at Northwestern University and he couldn’t because they couldn’t afford it at that point. Ever, ever. So my mom and dad had a small little store and it was a lady store and it was like the baby to a low man’s, like a little tiny baby to you because it was out of our garage.
00:05:32 Christy: Oh, interesting.
00:05:33 Joyce: And, but we lived on Main Street. So at least we had, you know–
00:05:36 Christy: Foot traffic.
00:05:37 Joyce: There’s a lot of cars. More cars than foot traffic. It was a highway too. So my parents had this little store and we were open, nine to nine, seven days a week.
00:05:50 Christy: Oh my goodness.
00:05:51 Joyce: So he tried to make a living. They tried to make a living. They worked very, very hard. So that’s how I grew up. I grew up running from our house to the store. If somebody, my dad had a bell that would bring into the house and anybody that wasn’t in the store would have to run from the house to the store to wait on a customer. And that’s how I grew up. And it was okay. I never really knew how poor we were because as I say, my mom made lamb chops. And–
00:06:25 Christy: My favorites, by the way.
00:06:25 Joyce: Yeah, my favorite. And I guess lamb chops were pretty reasonable at the time, but I didn’t know how poor we were because it was very rich in our home. We had love and my sister was four years older than me. She just passed away last year, exactly a year ago, tomorrow, actually.
00:06:44 Christy: I’m sorry.
00:06:45 Joyce: And we were, even though four years apart, she was my older sister. And, you know, she was pretty special. And then I have a younger brother who’s 18 months younger than me. So this is a cute little story. So we’re in this big old house, in this neighborhood now that my dad has to drive all the kids to school because they all come and get into my dad’s car every morning and he’s the chauffeur of everybody in the neighborhood. We all got our own way home, walked home, but he got us to school.
00:07:15 Joyce: Anyway, so this big old house that he had grown up in had three bedrooms. And upstairs, when I was young, very young, I shared the bed with my brother, Jack, who’s 18 months younger. And then when I got a little older, my mom pulled Jack out of the room and he got his own bedroom. My sister was pulled from her room by herself and put with me. So I always had somebody to sleep with. I was the one in the middle.
00:07:43 Christy: I like it.
00:07:43 Joyce: And so I just never knew. And then I graduated from high school. And I went to a junior college in Benton Harbor for a year. My sister had gone to Michigan State and she was there for about a year and she wanted to do something else. And that was four years older than me. And my brother is just a year and a half. And he was definitely going to go to college because boys had to go to college in a Jewish home.
00:08:11 Joyce: I was a pretty average student. I was a C student. And I was not going to go away to college. I mean, that was a given. They did not have the money for me to send me away. So I went to the junior college. I was there for a year. And my mom and dad said to me, okay, I said, I have to get out of town. You’re only letting me date Jewish boys of which there were five in the whole city.
00:08:35 Christy: Okay, that’s funny. Sorry. That’s funny.
00:08:40 Joyce: There were five and three of them were relatives.
00:08:41 Christy: Oh, no.
00:08:42 Joyce: And so that was not going to happen. And so I said, I got to get out of here and I want to go into fashion merchandising. And my sister at that time was living in Chicago and she was at the Ray Vogue School, fashion merchandising. I said, I want to go there. So I moved to Chicago and I didn’t apply to go there because that still costs money.
00:09:05 Joyce: And so my dad, who was so sweet, he drives me into Chicago. I get our apartment. I had already found a roommate and everything. Oh, that’s another story. But anyway, he takes me up to Marshall Field and he sits in the waiting area and he said, okay, let’s fill out your application. And then you go in and talk to them. And lo and behold, I had a job.
00:09:31 Christy: You know, I was a Marshall Field in Chicago.
00:09:34 Joyce: You know, that’s the premiere store of Mark at that time. This was 1962. Because I graduated high school in 61. No. So, yeah, I was 62 in the summer because I had already had a year of junior college. So that was going to be my job. Oh, prior to moving to Chicago, my sister had a friend whose sister was going to move to Chicago too. And I said, Oh, great. Maybe she’d like to get an apartment with me and we can be roommates. Yeah, she would. And so we found an apartment and this was about a month before we each moved there.
00:10:12 Joyce: I was so excited. We were living at 3600 Lake Shore Drive, which was the preeminent address, brand new building, doorman, one bedroom apartment, and my share was going to be half of it. And it was gonna be like $50 to $75 a month rent. Perfect. So daddy moves me into Chicago that day. We moved over to 3600 Lake Shore Drive and lo and behold, Myrna’s there and her mom and her mom, Sarah. Hi, Sarah, how are you? She says, I guess we’re gonna be all living together. I said, oh no. I said..
00:10:54 Christy: In a one bedroom apartment?
00:10:55 Joyce: Yeah, one bedroom.
00:10:56 Christy: Oh no.
00:10:57 Joyce: I said, well, can you guys tell me where I’m going to be sleeping? On the couch of which we didn’t have at the time yet because we had to furnish it.
00:11:05 Christy: Wow. Okay.
00:11:06 Joyce: I said, well, that’s not what I kind of had in mind, but it was too late. I mean, I had to do something. I had to live there, at least for a while. I like Myrna a lot and I liked her mom. Nothing wrong with her mom. Lovely. Not what I had in mind. I couldn’t go to the right college. I couldn’t, you know, go to the right school in New York, you know, whatever. And here I am. So my cousins lived in Chicago.
00:11:35 Joyce: And I’ll just give you just a little tidbit of this. And he was a year older than me. And he called me. He says, well, Joyce, if you ever find any women, young girls, you know, I’d like to meet. I said, oh, I’ve got this roommate. So I fixed him up about a year and a half later, they got married. I didn’t live with her that long. I only lived with her for the summer. And I said, well, Steve, his name was Steve Crane. I said, Steve, I said, do you have anybody to fix me up with? He says, oh, we have a rule with my friends. We don’t fix up anybody.
00:12:10 Christy: Oh, that’s not fair.
00:12:11 Joyce: I said, well, could you have told me this?
00:12:13 Christy: Yeah, right, that’s not fair at all.
00:12:15 Joyce: Could you have told me this before? This is not in the book, by the way.
00:12:18 Christy: Okay, okay.
00:12:20 Joyce: So, a long story short, I lived in Chicago from 1962 to 1965. I must’ve had a good 10 roommates. They kept getting married. I had to keep looking for other places to live. I love the guys I worked with at Marshall Fields, but they went back to school at the end of the summer and I was still there. But then I went and I had different jobs. I worked in marketing research. I worked a lot of different things. I entered the phone for all of them.
00:12:53 Christy: And I didn’t know when you met Steve.
00:12:55 Joyce: Okay. So I met Steve. I was working for my last job in Chicago, which I didn’t realize at the time would be for the Union of American Hebrew congregations. And I was gonna be the admin, no, it was really called a secretary, but an admin to the director. Okay, I really liked him a lot. He was a great guy. So he said, when I interviewed, he said, what’s your background? I told him, I said, I’ve been an admin. And I worked at Marshall Fields.
00:13:29 Joyce: And I worked for this, for Conners Publishing Company. And I worked for a number of other places. And he said, Okay. He said, Can you type? I said, you know what, I can type. I said, but I’m much better on the phone. Which meant, really? I knew I was going to have to type. Those days we had the carbon paper.
00:13:52 Christy: Yep. I remember.
00:13:53 Joyce: Oh, God. I couldn’t type. But I practiced it a lot. I had a lot of wasteful paper in my thing. But I learned to work the mimeograph machine. Anyway, one day he comes to me. We ran a summer camp up in, the office was for a summer Jewish camp up in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. He said, Joyce, can you relieve this fellow, his name is Steven Foster, and he’s going to Madison. And so he’s driving down from Madison to Oconomowoc every week, and it’s just too much for him. Can you go up? Or he told, actually, Irv told Steve that his secretary would go up, his admin would go up and take care of that. And he said, and we’re gonna pay you, every time you go up, $25. Well, that was in addition to my 50 or $60 a week that I was making. So–
00:14:42 Christy: Yeah, that’s going to be a deal. Right.
00:14:45 Joyce: So anyway, so I don’t drive highways today, but I certainly didn’t do that in Chicago. And so I took a train up from Chicago to a kind of walk or near a kind of walk. And Steve Foster picked me up at about four o’clock in the afternoon. And by 10 o’clock at night, he had proposed to me.
00:15:05 Christy: Oh, I did not know that.
00:15:07 Joyce: And that’s without sleeping with each other.
00:15:08 Christy: Oh my God, right. No sex, no sex. Did you hear that? The synagogue just said, no sex with the rabbi.
00:15:15 Joyce: He was so adorable.
00:15:18 Christy: Yeah, he is. Well, he still is. Yeah.
00:15:19 Joyce: My God, and young. He was so cute and so sweet. And I thought, oh my God, I have hit the jackpot. All my parents said was just find somebody Jewish.
00:15:28 Christy: Yeah, right. And he was very Jewish. Yeah.
00:15:32 Joyce: I always went to that extra level. Anyway, so, I said yes, this was in December.
00:15:39 Christy: Within five hours of meeting him.
00:15:40 Joyce: Yeah.
00:15:41 Christy: You said yes to marry him.
00:15:43 Joyce: And we were married one year later in December, December 26, 1965.
00:15:48 Christy: I love it. This is a great time. We’re gonna just take a pause here for a moment. We will be right back to talk about the rabbi and the senator sleeping together and the remarkable story of Joyce Foster. We’ll be right back.
00:16:04 Christy: This is your host, Christy Belz. Many of the people you meet on my podcast have participated in my online curriculum called Uproot. This 15-week course takes you through my transformational process of understanding our roots, reviewing our path and collecting the tools for life success. I would love to help you on your journey. Learn more about the Uproot course, take my quiz and explore my transformational retreats at christybelz.com\uproot.
00:16:41 Christy: Welcome back. Okay, let’s continue the stories. They’ve gotten engaged within the first five hours.
00:16:47 Joyce: He proposed to me in the first five hours.
00:16:48 Christy: First five hours, okay. And then?
00:16:51 Joyce: That was in December. I’m still working in Chicago. He’s still going to school, Madison, and he was supposed to come down for my 21st birthday in February. And all of a sudden he couldn’t come down and I just broke my heart.
00:17:04 Christy: Oh, I bet.
00:17:05 Joyce: You know, why? Why? And so then he invited me to come up to Madison. April, the week of April 11th, 1965. And I went up and he had a crummy apartment with three really nice guys. They were in med school and everything. And you know, the apartments up in any college. Yeah.
00:17:28 Christy: Men’s apartments at colleges were so gross.
00:17:30 Joyce: And so the first night, right, the first night, lovely. Very nice visit, nice soul supper or whatever. The next day he said to me, Joyce. He said, I don’t know how I could ever get married. I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, he says, I’ve got five years of graduate school. I said, well, I can work longer. I said, you know, I can work. But he just wasn’t sure. And then he had, and so then I wasn’t supposed to leave till later that afternoon on another train back to Chicago. And he went to teach Sunday school. And I got a call from my sister. And she said, Joycie, Daddy just passed away.
00:18:12 Christy: Oh, man.
00:18:14 Joyce: I said, what? My father had died. And I was beside myself. His roommates called him. He came right back. He called his parents. He said, I’m going to drive Joyce down to Benton Harbor. And so his mom said, well, stop in Milwaukee and pick up the car, because the county of Milwaukee was closer to Milwaukee. Pick up the car, my car and his mom’s car, and then you guys will drive back. And then Steve’s sister said, I’ll drive too with you. And so one of his roommates was a med student. So he gave me, I don’t know, Valium or something. And I was kind of groggy in the back seat. And my father had committed suicide.
00:19:04 Christy: Oh, I’m so sorry.
00:19:05 Joyce: Which, you know.
00:19:06 Christy: I don’t know if you know this or not, but I write in my book that my father attempted to take his life two times when I was growing up and he didn’t actually die of his suicide attempts, but he certainly passed away at 47 from the attempts of his suicide attempts. So I just want you to know I just have–
00:19:24 Joyce: You don’t get over that.
00:19:24 Christy: Never, no.
00:19:26 Joyce: Never.
00:19:26 Christy: Never, ever, ever, ever. So and I’m a huge advocate of men’s mental health and suicide awareness of prevention so that doesn’t surprise me.
00:19:34 Joyce: He was only 54.
00:19:35 Christy: Yeah, my dad was 47. So it’s just like… I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s what I can say.
00:19:40 Joyce: I have a son now 54, and I have a son now 56. It’s like, what?
00:19:46 Christy: Anyway, so.
00:19:47 Joyce: So Steve came down. Everybody was down there, stayed for the funeral, then had to go back. And remember now, he just broke up with me.
00:19:55 Christy: Right.
00:19:55 Joyce: My father just died. And he went, he said, I’ll call you as soon as I get to, you know, da, da, da. And of course, he did. And his sister said, he told his sister what had happened. She said to him, you’re gonna leave this woman? She’s the best thing that ever happened to you. You know, and of course I was.
00:20:15 Christy: Of course you were. [Keep up].
00:20:19 Joyce: So he started the relationship all over again. And in May, this happened at April 11th, in May, he asked me to come up to Milwaukee and to meet his mom and dad and everything. And so I did. And he proposed to me with a ring. And lo and behold, he even invited my mom, my sister, and my brother-in-law. I said, well, you’re pretty sure of yourself. So that’s it.
00:20:53 Christy: He’s still getting around for his money, don’t you?
00:20:55 Joyce: And that was in May and in December of 1965, we were married and we just celebrated 58 years.
00:21:02 Christy: Congratulations.
00:21:03 Joyce: Thank you. And regarding his rabbinate, he’s been extraordinarily successful.
00:21:10 Christy: Yes, he has. Well, very well renowned rabbi in our community and in a lot of Jewish communities.
00:21:17 Joyce: He’s been in the forefront of everything important as far as I’m concerned.
00:21:22 Christy: Yeah, he has. I remember probably 25 years ago, I just moved to Denver and I was involved in a little non-denominational church over here called Unity and they were bringing together different faiths. And I remember meeting Steve for the first time, Rabbi Foster, for the first time at this multi-religion, multi-denominational space that was created. And I remember thinking, who is that guy? Cause he was quite something in presence and still is. But, yeah.
00:21:53 Joyce: He was in front of gay rights. We thought that half the congregation was going to walk out. The congregation is of 2000 families.
00:22:00 Christy: Right.
00:22:00 Joyce: When he came, it was 900 families. When he retired, it was over 2000 families. And if people really didn’t like his politics, which he didn’t, he did not espouse who you should ever vote for, because you can’t do that from the poll.
00:22:14 Christy: No, you can’t.
00:22:15 Joyce: But you know, you have a, you know where it’s going, you know, in terms of, he was just so dedicated and committed to his–
00:22:26 Christy: Values.
00:22:26 Joyce: Values.
00:22:27 Christy: His values. Yeah. And you’ve marched right alongside of him.
00:22:31 Joyce: I learned right along. Yeah, well, I learned. And so, and I’ll fast forward it now. In 1993, David Foster came over. We had just been at a breakfast for Jews and Democrats or whatever it was. I don’t know. We just, we came home and David says, Mom.
00:22:57 Christy: David, your oldest son, just to clarify.
00:22:58 Joyce: Yeah. David Foster.
00:22:59 Christy: It was the daddy of the daughter born in the party sack with my son, Charlie.
00:23:03 Joyce: Yeah, he’s now 56. And he says, mom, why don’t you consider running for city council? I said, well, David, the only time I ever did anything with city council was I was down there just with your dad when he was promoting equal rights for women, whatever it was. I don’t even remember what it was, but I knew that we needed it.
00:23:27 Christy: Give Joyce a quick drink of water here. Awesome.
00:23:30 Joyce: And so I said, David, I don’t know what it would be. What are you talking about? I’ve been very happy at Jewish Family Service. I’ve resettled hundreds and hundreds of refugees from the former Soviet Union, from Cambodia, from Vietnam, from South America. And I’ve resettled them and found them jobs. That’s what I do. He’s his mom. He says, you’re so dedicated to so much. He says, you know that shopping center, that’s within a chain link fence at University Hills, and that’s everything’s closed inside?
00:24:08 Christy: That’s kind of a blighted community for our guests in the Denver area.
00:24:12 Joyce: Right. And so I said, yeah. He says, well, I bet you could find something to do there. I said, David. And then he said, and you know, the city and county of Denver runs the hospital. There’s a hospital. And you want to make sure that they can still do women’s issues at this hospital.
00:24:34 Christy: David’s very persuasive, by the way. Her oldest son is a very, very successful attorney.
00:24:40 Joyce: Yes.
00:24:40 Christy: And, yes, as both of her sons are. But anyway, very persuasive.
00:24:45 Joyce: Very persuasive.
00:24:46 Christy: Persuading his mom to run for city council.
00:24:48 Joyce: I said, David, he says, I’ve got just the person that can run your campaign. But you have to know, we have to know by tomorrow. He said, because it’s a special election, and because the city council person was just asked to become Mayor Webb’s chief of staff. And now it’s an opening, six weeks. That’s it. So I talked to a few people. And my boss at work said, Joyce, he says, you’ve got to run for this. If you don’t win, you can have your job back. So really, you have nothing to lose. And I said, but it’s six weeks. I’m going to be gone for the… Don’t worry. So.
00:25:27 Christy: So I’m curious, what did Rabbi Foster say when you told him, or David?
00:25:30 Joyce: He was leery for the first five minutes.
00:25:33 Christy: Leery at first.
00:25:34 Joyce: Yeah. Just at first. And then he thought, why not?
00:25:36 Christy: Why not? Yeah.
00:25:38 Joyce: And he became the strongest campaign person.
00:25:40 Christy: I bet. Yeah.
00:25:41 Joyce: He was raising money for me.
00:25:43 Christy: I bet. Yeah. And you became, sorry, you’re gonna, you became a city council member that year in 93.
00:25:51 Joyce: 93, first elected Jewish woman.
00:25:53 Christy: Yes, congratulations.
00:25:54 Joyce: To the city council, like you said. I didn’t realize that at the time.
00:25:57 Christy: Yeah, and then you became the president of the city council in what year?
00:26:01 Joyce: Well, 2000, I think.
00:26:03 Christy: Yeah, in 2000.
00:26:04 Joyce: 2000, because we were done, I think, in 2003. And it was only 10 years that I was there because we had to jump out the time, term limits.
00:26:12 Christy: Yeah. And then you went on to run for the–
00:26:14 Joyce: No.
00:26:15 Christy: No?
00:26:15 Joyce: Then I was retired.
00:26:17 Christy: Oh, that’s right. I read that.
00:26:18 Joyce: And I became the CEO of the Chairman of the Board of Jewish Family Service.
00:26:22 Christy: Okay.
00:26:23 Joyce: God forbid, I should have a little time on my hands.
00:26:24 Christy: Yeah, I get it. I understand.
00:26:26 Joyce: But I was so dedicated to the agency. I loved Jewish Family Service. And then, oh, Ken Gordon, a blessed memory. Well, first of all, right before then, another drink of water. Right before that, he called me and he said, Joyce, he said, I need you to run for my seat in the Senate. And I said, I don’t think I can, Ken, because I just asked Steve to give notice to the temple upon retirement and he gave a two year notice. He had already done this. He sent a letter out and gave the congregation a two year notice. I said, so I absolutely can’t do that.
00:27:09 Christy: I just asked my husband to retire, now you’re asking me to serve four years in the Senate.
00:27:12 Joyce: Right, right. And on an eight year possible term.
00:27:16 Christy: On an eight year, yeah.
00:27:18 Joyce: So I said, I can’t do that. And it’s really, really hard to say no. It was hard to say no to Ken Gordon, who was my hero. And talked to Steve and he was first angry with me. And then he said, okay, you know, okay, why not? All the kids said, you got to do it. So I’ve got to raise money. I was going to have a primary, but I did it. And lo and behold, I won. And I had to start all over again, you know, what do you do in the Senate? I knew a little bit more then, than I did when I was running for city council and I did nothing.
00:27:55 Christy: You knew city politics, but you were now working at the state.
00:27:58 Joyce: But there I was. I became, they gave me the position of chair, because the Democrats were in control, chair of local government. That was so cool. Because Democrats did not understand the importance of local government. What’s, who cares? Well, if you run local government, you care what the state’s going to do.
00:28:19 Christy: Absolutely. You do. Yeah.
00:28:21 Joyce: So I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I knew that I was only going to be there for four years. I did not share that with anybody there. I wasn’t going to run for the other four years. You’re entitled to an eight year period of time. I wasn’t going to say anything. And I really didn’t feel very old at that time. I guess I was, I was 60, 59 years old or 60 years old when I left the city. And so 62, 65, I don’t know what I was. So I had a great, a great–
00:29:01 Christy: Political career. Yes.
00:29:02 Joyce: Yeah, I had, there were some ups and downs and there was some very difficult decisions and, you know, all kinds of issues.
00:29:14 Christy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. State government is, I have several friends who are legislators who, you know, I have the ear on. It’s complex and working at the state level with policy and all of the collaboration and everything it takes to be able to move stuff through the legislative processes. Yeah, so kudos to you for your service, both at our city and at our state.
00:29:36 Christy: One question before we wrap up this segment of kind of the story, tell me something that you’re most proud of as it relates to your community service. Like, what do you take away from you at this age to say, man, that made a difference. I feel so good about that.
00:29:51 Joyce: I think what I can share with people is that in grammar school, it was at the time when your parents could put you ahead of… I had to go to 1A or 1B grade, 3A or 3B. And my parents made, sadly, the unfortunate decision to put me ahead a half a grade. So I ended up skipping like a half of 2nd grade. I am sure, looking back, that I had some learning disabilities. And nobody ever checked you for learning disabilities back in those days. They gave you…
00:30:30 Joyce: We were the first ones to get polio shots. Thank God that came during my period of time. But learning disabilities, forget. And so I had to work harder to get my Cs. And I tell everybody I was an average C student. Half the group was ahead of me and half the group was below me. As a matter of fact, because now that I’m 80 years old, I am becoming a little bit more forgetful.
00:30:58 Joyce: And so I have a doctor, neurologist, and I’ve been going to him now for a couple of years. And I said, I need to know where I stand. Am I on the spectrum here? What’s happening to me? And because if I’m more forgetful or whatever, and people said, don’t you remember? I just told you that. Don’t you remember I just told you that? Yeah. I can’t. Yeah, I remember–
00:3120 Christy: It’s happening to me and I’m 60. So I’m 61 if I’m honest, but yeah. So anyway, I just want you to know. Okay.
00:31:28 Joyce: So the doctor said, okay, on this date, you are going to have your test. We’re going to check it out. So Steve drives me over to the doctor’s office and we get there and we check in. And I said to the receptionist, hi, my name is Joyce Foster and I’m here for the, I’m here to, you know, see the doctor about my memory test. And she says, Mrs. Foster? You were supposed to be here yesterday. Oh, shit.
00:32:02 Christy: Oops. You’re kidding me, then?
00:32:05 Joyce: Oh, yeah, I see. It’s, you know, this, oh my God.
00:32:09 Christy: That is so funny.
00:32:10 Joyce: So she says, but you don’t really need the doctor. I can hook you up to a machine, I can hook you up to the computer and it’s self-directed. I said, I don’t work so well with computers. I mean, please trust me. I, you know, I’m, so she says, it’s really easy. So I did it and I finished it. And then a month later was my appointment, which we did not forget to come back and be evaluated from them. So my doctor who’s adorable said, well Joyce, this is what it says. Says that you are in your age and everything. He says, you are 50% above many people. And you’re also 50% below many people. I said, so that means I’m a C student.
00:32:58 Christy: I’m an average.
00:33:00 Joyce: I said, I’ve always had Cs. I graduated smacking the middle of 466 students. I was an average C student. I said, why don’t I just take this test? And so I guess I had to grab other things so that I could achieve better. You know, and I work, I can’t say I work in high school or college in my, you know, I didn’t work that much higher in college. I had one year, remember. But I do have a certificate from Harvard because I got to go to Harvard for the month of June, 1994.
00:33:40 Joyce: The mayor thought it would be a good opportunity if I would go, it was a special program. You had to be accepted into it. It was for state legislators and all this and that and everything and raised the money and had a scholarship. So I have a certificate on my wall and it says Harvard. And that’s pretty cool.
00:34:01 Christy: From the John F. Kennedy School of Public Policy.
00:34:03 Joyce: That’s right.
00:34:04 Christy: That’s an amazing accolade.
00:34:05 Joyce: That’s right. And I have a sweatshirt.
00:34:07 Christy: Oh, you have a sweatshirt? The most important part, she has the sweatshirt. Right, that’s beautiful. Oh my gosh, Joyce.
00:34:15 Joyce: I, my career has been very fulfilling. My family has been–
00:34:21 Christy: How many grandchildren do you have now?
00:34:22 Joyce: We have six.
00:34:23 Christy: Six, they’re beautiful. I know all of them.
00:34:24 Joyce: They are beautiful and they are smart and they are funny.
00:34:28 Christy: They are funny.
00:34:29 Joyce: And they love it when I say, come on, we’re gonna go shopping.
00:34:31 Christy: I bet they do.
00:34:32 Joyce: All of them.
00:34:33 Christy: All of them.
00:34:34 Joyce: One at a time. Well, actually last year, last summer, before Abby, two years ago, well, Abby hadn’t graduated yet from college, I don’t think. She was living in Chicago, in New York, and she was working on an internship. She had an internship. And I said, well, how would you like if Lucy, who’s two years younger, three years younger, her cousin, my granddaughter, would come for the weekend? She said, that would be great, Ammy. I’m Ammy to them, A-M-M-Y, she named me. So Lucy and Debbie and I were in New York for a whole long weekend.
00:35:08 Christy: Lovely.
00:35:09 Joyce: Shopping, shopping, shopping.
00:35:10 Christy: Yeah. sounds right up my alley. I could do that.
00:35:14 Joyce: So, and then, but the boys love to shop with me too.
00:35:16 Christy: I bet they do.
00:35:17 Joyce: And we see shows.
00:35:18 Christy: Ammy’s pretty fun. You haven’t figured that out by now. It’s pretty fun. So, I always love to ask my guests, and particularly because of the wisdom that you hold and all that you’ve done and accomplished to offer the listeners a few nuggets. Like a few things that you say, you know, these were the things that really made a difference for me or these are the things that I feel like if I were to talk to my granddaughter right now, I would want her to know. I just got chills asking you. I’m looking her in the eye and I just got chills like, whoa, okay, it’s going to be really good. All right. So give us two or three, I call them nuggets that you’d want to share with our listeners.
00:35:59 Joyce: Well, what I honestly like to share every year is an election year, as far as I’m concerned. And we women, especially, we have to think for ourselves and we have to see what’s going on. And we have to see who’s running, what their platform is, what it’s gonna do to women or what isn’t it gonna do to women. And I care what it’s doing to people of color. I care what it’s doing to immigrants. I’m only second generation. My grandparents came from Russia at the right time. My parents’ first generation, I’m second generation. Steve is exactly the same.
00:36:42 Joyce: So we understand the plight. We’ve been to Ellis Island. We’ve taken the grandchildren all to Ellis Island. We think that’s where they came in. The records, I mean, I guess I could go on to all these networks and things, but I don’t care. I kind of think where they came. And I know kind of where they grew up. But we have to be really cognizant of people that are following us. Do we just close our borders because we’re here? Do we just say to, when I was growing up, to be honest, I’ve been living in Chicago for four years. I have to tell you that I, this is gonna be hard for me to share. And I’m sure that my family isn’t gonna be happy with me sharing this right now. But there was no such thing as contraception, unless you were a guy and you had a prophylactic. That was it.
00:37:33 Christy: That’s it.
00:37:34 Joyce: There were no birth control pills, there were women had diaphragms. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a diaphragm, but I hadn’t. And I was not promiscuous at all. I was really a late bloomer. And, but I went out on dates, you know, and I had a boyfriend before I met Steve. And he was very bright. He had gone to the Sorbonne in wherever that is in Europe, in France and who’s smart, very nice. I had not had any sexual activity until I was 19, 20, 20, 19 and 20. And lo and behold, I get pregnant. And I certainly couldn’t tell my mom and dad.
00:38:24 Christy: No. We couldn’t,
00:38:26 Joyce: Couldn’t. And my grandson just coming in and they all know. And so I said, was really hard for me to tell Steve. In fact, I never even told Steve for two years after we were married. But I had an abortion. It was either that or being pregnant and giving it up for adoption, which one of my girlfriends did. Couple other girlfriends had abortions and these weren’t just going into a nice doctor’s office. And this is back street abortions.
00:38:52 Christy: Street abortions, yeah.
00:38:53 Joyce: In Chicago, Chicago alleys, And I mean, I was, I mean, we broke up months after that because it wasn’t going to work for us. It just was not going to work for us. He was not the one for me. I thought he was very kind. Thank God for his dad sent the money. And that day it was $300. I’m making $50 a week. My parents had no money. So I couldn’t tell them. They never knew. And my mom, who lived here in Denver with us until she was 87, I never even told her that. I couldn’t.
00:39:30 Joyce: But I finally told my, Abby was the first person, granddaughter, grandchild I told a couple of years ago and she just broke down. You know, which I felt very badly about, but you know what? We have to know who we’re electing for their goal.
00:39:46 Christy: Exactly.
00:39:47 Joyce: For president of the United States.
00:39:48 Christy: Women’s rights and–
00:39:49 Joyce: Women’s rights. I will be the first one in line marching.
00:39:52 Christy: Yeah, I’m right there behind you sister, right there behind you. And we get to choose what happens to our bodies and, yeah.
00:39:59 Joyce: You know, I wasn’t promiscuous, naive. And I’ve never said this to anybody out loud, and it’s not in my book.
00:40:08 Christy: Do you know what I’m going to share? I didn’t write about my abortion in my book either. So thank you. And I never told my mom.
00:40:16 Joyce: You didn’t either.
00:40:17 Christy: No, you couldn’t tell your mom. You couldn’t.
00:40:21 Joyce: You couldn’t.
00:40:22 Christy: Right. And, yeah.
00:40:23 Joyce: And girls today, thank God, they’re on birth control pills or they’re on, or they have, but they have, whatever they have. They can have it.
00:40:32 Christy: They can have it.
00:40:33 Joyce: In Denver, Colorado, they can.
00:40:34 Christy: Yeah, in Denver.
00:40:35 Joyce: Not in Texas, they can’t.
00:40:37 Christy: Right, or a lot of other states.
00:40:38 Joyce: A lot of other states.
00:40:39 Christy: Yeah, that one was beautiful. My gosh, I don’t know. I’m sure you have so many more words of wisdom–
00:40:45 Joyce: I know you have a lot of words of wisdom that I can remember. You know, these are.
00:40:49 Christy: I think that is beautiful. Know who we’re electing. Let’s have each other’s backs, ladies. Come on, let’s have each other’s backs, right? And if somebody doesn’t have our back, then let’s not put them in office, period. Period, like my two cents.
00:41:06 Joyce: That’s right. But we have to, but we can’t remain quiet.
00:41:09 Christy: No, we can’t. And we have to share these stories, Joyce. I mean, we have to share these stories.
00:41:13 Joyce: Look how old I am when I’m sharing it publicly for the first time. 80.
00:41:17 Christy: Yeah, 61. 61, right? And I tell you, it’s funny, my book, Oh God of Second Chances, Here I Am Again, I was teaching retreat and we always share stories the first night because I really believe in the power of collective storytelling because we realized we’re not alone in our stories when we tell the truth.
00:41:37 Christy: But the next morning we got up and we were debriefing and one of my participants said, you know what I’m really aware of is what I didn’t tell you the first, what I didn’t tell you last night. And I had this visceral feeling of like, oh shit. Like, oh my God, it’s gonna be, oh God, a second chances. What I didn’t tell you the first time, right? I put a whole another book in there. Oh my God.
00:41:59 Joyce: Well, good for you with doing this. Good for you, Christy. Because this is so important.
00:42:04 Christy: Yeah, thank you.
00:42:06 Joyce: So important and so brave for you to do this.
00:42:09 Christy: Courage, it takes a lot of courage, right? To write the book, to tell the story, to voice.
00:42:14 Joyce: I told Steve, I said, our next book is gonna be all about me.
00:42:18 Christy: All I could say is good luck to that.
00:42:20 Joyce: Yeah, right. all about me.
00:42:23 Christy: Joyce Foster, thank you so very much for being with me today. My heart is full. Yeah, you’ve just touched me. I want you to know that you can get Joyce’s book.
00:42:33 Joyce: Not really. You have to call me. I only have 700 left.
00:42:37 Chirty: Okay. Well we, we’re gonna put this in the show notes of how you can get ahold of Joyce and her book, The Rabbi and the Senator Sleep Together. Really a must read. So Joyce, thank you, blessings. Thank you so much.
00:42:51 Joyce: Thank you, sweetheart.
00:42:53 Christy: Thank you,
00:42:54 Joyce: Yeah, you’re welcome.
00:42:59 Christy: It is the joy of my life to showcase the voices of people and the messy details of life’s journey. As you have experienced, my guests are thriving with purpose and style, but that does not mean that their life is easy and without challenges. I’ve dedicated my life to you and your journey. Thank you for listening to Second Chances with Christy Belz. Please subscribe and learn more at christybelz.com\secondchances.