Nurse has traveled the world

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Catherine Taylor Foster, who spent decades as a nurse with the Army Reserve, talks about her life and her volunteer work for the Peace Corps. | Matt Marton~Sun-Times Media

Updated: January 29, 2012 8:00AM

Catherine Taylor Foster has partied in Kathmandu, met Mother Teresa and stood in the shadow of Mount Everest.

All told, she’s stepped foot in nearly 50 countries, and each journey was for humanitarian purposes.

The Orland Park resident has traveled with the Peace Corps to China, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand, and assisted plastic surgeons and eye doctors in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Romania.

And there is one thing she’s learned from her travels.

“People are wonderful no matter where you are,” the 75-year-old said.

The poverty and meager living conditions she’s encountered make her appreciative of the everyday things we take for granted, like access to healthy food and clean water, and at times a bit disgusted by our excesses.

“You don’t need a whole lot to get by,” Foster said, admitting that going into stores at Christmastime makes her uncomfortable.

She continues to keep a schedule that has her volunteering weekly in patient administration at Hines Veterans Hospital and staying active with Orland Park’s Veterans Commission and the village’s American Legion post. Earlier this year, she was in Atlanta for the presentation of the Lillian Carter Award.

Two years ago, Foster was on stage at the Carter Center, receiving the award from former President Jimmy Carter. It’s named after the 39th president’s mother — who, at age 68, joined the Peace Corps — and is given to volunteers who serve after they turn 50.

It’s among a mountain of accolades Foster has garnered along the way, including the “Service to the Community Award” from Marquette University, where Foster earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing.

But, as with anyone who gives unselfishly of their time and talents, plaudits and awards aren’t her motivation for what she does.

“My belief is that as blessed as I have been in my life, I feel like I have an obligation to give back,” Foster said.

Longtime military nurse

Foster said she had a keen interest in the military ever since she was a girl growing up in Madison, Wis., where her dad owned and operated gas stations. She served for 24 years in the U.S. Army Reserve nurse corps, retiring in 1996 as a colonel, and put her skills to good use traveling overseas.

A 1994 trip to Uganda with the humanitarian organization CARE was intended to help bring clean drinking water to a poor village. When a grenade was lobbed into a group of tourists, Foster said, her combat casualty training kicked in. One of three nurses with the CARE group, Foster calmly, yet firmly, began directing those around her to render aid.

“Arteries were squirting, a guy’s eye was hanging out,” she said of the chaotic scene.

Her actions garnered her an award for heroism from the Lions Club.

A couple of years later, while with the Peace Corps in Nepal, Foster was able to save the life of a toddler who suffered from a 105-degree fever during an encephalitis outbreak that killed 30 people. Borrowing a shabby shawl from the child’s mother, she soaked the cloth in water and used it to keep the girl’s temperature under control.

“The cloth was absolutely filthy,” Foster recalled. “You dipped it in the water, and the water just turned black.”

She remembers the look of gratitude the mother had knowing her child would be OK, as well as a simple gesture from another parent during a stint in a hospital in Honduras, assisting doctors working to correct children’s cleft lips and palates. With little to offer her, the father brought in a freshly cut stalk of bananas.

“I don’t think we had any food (in the hospital) so I was eating bananas all night,” Foster said.

Inspired by president’s mom

It was while she was with the Peace Corps in India, working at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta, that she met the Catholic nun, not long before her death.

When she was considering joining the Peace Corps, Foster was 59 and wondering if she might be too old for the rigors of the job. Reading Lillian Carter’s biography convinced her she was making the right choice.

“I thought, ‘If she can do it, I can do it,’ ” Foster said.

She believes her empathy and the desire to aid others is “rubbing off” on her grandsons, who also live in Orland Park. One grandson raised $400 for water projects in Zambia and another helped organize a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, she said.

“When they get bigger, I want to take them with me to Honduras,” Foster said.

Where she’s headed to next is still up in the air. The independent Foster describes her home as “a large storage unit,” merely a place to visit in between her global jaunts.

“I believe in taking advantage of opportunities,” she said of her globetrotting ways. “They often don’t come up again.”