page_title: Mary Robinson Foster
section_title: Early life and background
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Robinson Foster / Early life and background
caption_attribution_description: English: Mary Elizabeth Mikahala Robinson Foster (1844-1930) was the daughter of a shipwrecked sailor, John James Robinson and Rebecca Prever, daughter of Kamakana, a Maui chiefess. She was sister of Mark P. Robinson, who served as Queen Liliuokalani's Minister of Foreign Affairs. She married Thomas R. Foster, the owner of a shipyard, a shipping agency and a number of schooners. After meeting Anagarika Dharmapala in 1893, she showed an interest in Buddhisim and was instrumental in its establishment in Hawaii. Her legacy was the Foster Botanical Garden, which she bequeathed to the City and County of Honolulu, with the provision that the city accept and forever keep and properly maintain the (gardens) as a public and tropical park to be known and called Foster Park. At the time, the gardens were roughly 5.5 acres (2 ha).
context_page_description: Mary Elizabeth Mikahala Robinson Foster was a Hawaiian philanthropist, and known as the first Hawaiian Buddhist. On her death, she donated her substantial gardens to the city of Honolulu, and they later became the Foster Botanical Garden.
context_section_description: Foster was born in 1844 and grew up in Nu‘uanu on Oahu, Hawai‘i, where she attended the Oahu Charity School. She was the eldest of the nine children of Rebecca Prever and John James Robinson. Her mother had French ancestry and Hawaiian ancestry that dates back to ali‘i (chiefs) from Maui and Hawai‘i Island. Her father was British and was the founder of a large shipbuilding company. Her brother was politician and businessman Mark P. Robinson.
  When she was 16 years old she married Thomas R. Foster, who worked for her father's business. In 1884 the couple bought William Hillebrand's property, which Foster later donated for public gardens, and began developing the plant collections. Five years later, in 1889, Foster's husband died, leaving her widowed and childless at the age of 45.
  In 1893 her good friend Queen Lili‘uokalani was overthrown by American soldiers, and imprisoned at 'Iolani Palace. Foster was one of two people who were permitted to visit her during her imprisonment.
caption: Mary Foster in her youth
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