Author Feather Schwartz Foster Discusses "Garfield's Train" on Patriot-TV

AREA – Author Feather Schwartz Foster, of Scotch Plains, NJ, will be making a return appearance on Rick Adams’ “Community Corner” Television Show, to be aired on Patriot-8 Cable TV. The program is aired to households in the Somerset, Mercer, Hunterdon and Morris Counties in New Jersey. Her new book, “Garfield’s Train,” centers on the death of President James Garfield in Long Branch, NJ in 1881.

According to the author, " Few people today realize the enormity of the U.S. political scene in the 1880s – those heady days between the Civil War and the start of the 20th Century! Those were the days powered by the “Robber Barons” of Mark Twain’s Gilded Age. And if the era was the Gilded Age, then Long Branch, New Jersey was the “Gilded Strand,” where the wealthy and famous came to enjoy their summers. I’ve tried to offer a glimpse of that era of sprawling 30-room “cottages” in my new novel. My fictional Dunbar family interacts with such characters as General Grant, Roscoe Conkling, James G. Blaine, and, of course, the Garfield family in the early 1880s

James A. Garfield was only president for six months – three of which were spent dying. To finally escape the fetid and miserable heat of the Washington summer and offer the dying man some respite, he was brought to Long Branch for his last days. In a burst of patriotism, caring and community spirit, a ¾ mile railroad spur was built overnight for the President to be brought from the train station right to the door of a cottage-by-the-sea without painful jostling in a wagon over a rutted road.

According to the author, “This was arguably Long Branch’s proudest hours, and for some reason, it has become a mere footnote to history. The actual historical records only indicate that it happened – not how it happened. In ‘Garfield’s Train’, I tried to draw the picture in my mind of the entire posh resort and the way the 3,000 residents turned out to support the railroad workers in their labor of love and patriotism.”

Author Feather Schwartz Foster has been an "amateur" presidential historian for three decades. Following a long career in advertising and having written a score of children's musical shows, drawn on her thousand-volume personal presidential library and her love of history by penning, "Garfield’s Train.”

This will be Foster’s second appearance on Rick Adams’ “Community Corner.” Last year, she was invited to talk about her first book, “LADIES: A Conjecture of Personalities.” She has also made numerous appearances in the metro-NJ area discussing her book.

The Television program will air at various times in late November.

“Garfield’s Train” is available at most online booksellers, or through her webpage at www.authorsden.com/featherschwartzfoster.