Despite a lifetime of health challenges, Diana Lee Foster, known as Lee to family and friends, maintained a positive outlook.
“Lee had a harder road than most but was once a ridiculous, happy creature with a loud, weird, non-ladylike laugh that made everyone else laugh,” according to a friend. “She continued to smile every day despite her pain.”
Ms. Foster “suffered from juvenile diabetes since age 9,” her family said. She “experienced multiple diabetic complications including neuropathy, gastroparesis, renal failure/dialysis, and bacterial pneumonia.”
She died of pneumonia last Thursday at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. She was 52.
Ms. Foster lived in Hampton Bays but had grown up in Montauk and graduated from East Hampton High School. She had worked at the stable at Sears Bellows County Park in Hampton Bays, and was manager there in the early 1990s.
“Lee loved animals,” her family said. “She doted on her horse Sam, her cats, and her pet chickens.”
Ms. Foster was born in Manhasset on Feb. 8, 1972, to Harold Foster Jr. and the former Rita Barbis.
She is survived by a sister, Kelley Foster of Brooklyn and Hampton Bays, an aunt, Niki Schickler of Boca Raton, Fla., and Kenneth Chaves of Staten Island, a lifelong friend.
A private graveside service will be held at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk.
