Abstract
John Stuart Foster was born in Clarence, Nova Scotia, on 30 May 1890. The maritime provinces of Canada, especially Nova Scotia, are famous for supplying to the rest of the country a flow of leaders in education, business, politics, science, and the bar. Foster was a perfect example of this domestic brain drain. His example can be extended to another and better-publicized brain drain as well; his two sons, both excellent scientists, now reside in the United States. Foster attended Pictou Academy and Acadia and Mount Allison Universities. His strengths were in mathematics, science, and English, but he was in no way a solemn student. The legend persists that he transferred for two years from Acadia to Mount Allison at the request of the former, after being involved in a prank that involved stabling a cow overnight in the President’s office. In any case he graduated from Acadia just before the 1914-1918 war, apparently without hard feelings on either side; he always spoke well of Acadia, and Acadia later granted him an honorary degree (1934). He served briefly later as an instructor at Mount Allison. There he acquired the nickname ‘Stormy John’, on the origin of which history is silent.
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