Julia Foster Bailey (1872-1961)
(Mrs. George Bryant Bailey)

	Foster reunion

DISTINGUSIHED CITIZEN

"I remember my father telling of trips west in a covered wagon," Mrs. George Bailey recalled as she talked with a STAR reporter at her West Creek farm home.

Julia Bailey was born November 16, 1872, the youngest of nine children of George Lyman Foster and Lucy Hathaway. The family had lived in Indiana when the first eight children were born, but had moved westward to near what was then known as Parker, Kansas, Julia's birthplace.

When Julia was but a small child her mother passed away. Her father decided to take the family back to Indiana but he, too, passed away. The nine children, five boys and four girls, went back to Indiana by train. At this time Julia was only four years old. She lived with one of her brothers for awhile and then she and her sisters made a home for themselves.

Her first year of school was spent at the West Creek country school. Then, when she and the girls moved into Lowell, she attended the Lowell schools. She went to high school in Valparaiso and also to Valparaiso's Brown College now known as Valparaiso University.

When she was 19 Julia married George Bailey and they lived with his father, Josiah Bailey, at his farm homestead the first few years of their life together. The Josiah Bailey farm is about two miles west of her present farm home.

After a few years George and Julia moved to their own home, a farm of 495 acres. In 1911 they built the brick home in which she has lived ever since.

Leon, their only son, lives next door and manages the farm with his son in law, Ray McIntire, who with his wife, Helen, and three sons, Michael, David and Stephan, live with Julia. Leon had been instrumental in the farm's management since his marriage in 1914. His father was in the banking business then and served as president of the Lowell National bank for more than 40 years. When he died in 1948 Leon and Ray took over operation of the farm.

Listening to the radio is one of Mrs. Bailey's favorite pastimes and she used to like gardening. A charter member of both the Oakland Woman's club and Obadiah Taylor chapter, Daughters of the American Resolution, she is still active in both organizations.