Liz Foster worked hard at her menial job on a factory assembly line at Chancellor Industries ever since her husband Bill had abandoned her and her young children seven years earlier. Liz also supplemented her income doing housework at the Chancellor estate. Her 23-year-old son William Jr. resented being named after a man who would do such a thing, so instead was called “Snapper” after his "snappish" personality. Snapper was putting himself through medical school with a part-time job, and as the "man of the family" contributed to 21-year-old Greg’s law school, and kept a big-brotherly eye on his 18-year-old sister Jill who had just graduated from high school and worked as a shampoo girl and manicurist to help support them all.

Liz wished the best for all of her children and encouraged Snapper to pursue a nice, well-bred girl like Chris Brooks, daughter of Stuart Brooks, the publisher of the Genoa City Chronicle. But with enough obligations already, Snapper preferred his freedom. So while he dated Chris, he also slept with Sally McGuire, a waitress at Pierre's Restaurant. Although Snapper’s excuses were mostly legitimate that he had been on-call or fallen asleep due to his long hours, Stuart noticed how often Chris had been hurt and disappointed by Snapper so he opposed the relationship. Stuart learned that Snapper had been sleeping with Sally and told his daughter that Snapper was cheating on her. Chris did not believe him, so she moved out of the family home, and went to work at Snapper’s brother Greg's new law office. When Chris discovered that her father was financing her salary, she quit, which disappointed Greg who had also fallen in love with her and had proposed. While job-hunting, Chris stopped for a hamburger at a singles bar, and met George Curtis. He offered to walk her home and raped her. Months later Chris became willing to make love with Snapper, but memories of the rape wouldn’t let her. Snapper was understanding and supportive, but he still had Sally on the side.

Sally had also fallen in love with Snapper and was desperate to keep him. Since her own family life had been rough, her father died an alcoholic and mother committed suicide, Sally saw in Snapper the decency and security she wanted in a husband. Although she had already been an unwed mother earlier in her life, Sally used the oldest trick in the book to trap a man; she threw away her birth control pills, and got pregnant by Snapper.

With Snapper’s encouragement, Chris was finally able to file charges against her attacker. But on the witness stand Chris was made to look like she had not resisted, and Curtis was set free. Even more determined to stand by Chris, Snapper broke up with Sally and proposed to Chris. It was a long time before Chris finally accepted. Just after finding out that she was pregnant, Sally was devastated to hear of Snapper and Chris’s engagement. Sally took a drug overdose, but her friend Brad Elliott found her and saved her life. Sally returned to work and told her boss, Pierre Roulland, that she was pregnant. Pierre was in love with her, and offered to marry her and give the baby his name, promising that no one would ever know he was not the father. Sally put him off, hoping that if Snapper knew he had gotten her pregnant, he would break his engagement to Chris and marry her instead. But Snapper’s mother Liz found out about the pregnancy and convinced Sally not to interfere with her son’s budding career and impending marriage, and to marry Pierre. Sally accepted Pierre's proposal and they eloped a few days before Snapper's wedding. Although Snapper overheard their conversation and knew that he was Sally’s baby’s father, he and Chris were married. Chris's sister Lorie even returned from Europe for the wedding. Chris and Snapper worked through Chris’s sexual problems and happily lived in a small apartment. But when Chris became pregnant, Snapper feared that the additional responsibility might set back his medical career aspirations.

Sally had finally learned to appreciate Pierre for his generous, unselfish nature and had fallen in love with him, but Pierre was tragically killed by a robber at the restaurant. Sally wanted to leave town but Snapper urged her to stay until the baby was born. He also wanted to keep an eye on her because he feared that her unborn baby may have been injured by her suicide attempt.

Sally gave birth to a healthy baby and named him Pierre Charles Roulland after her late husband, but she called him Chuckie. Chris had a miscarriage when she discovered that Snapper was Chuckie's father. Soon afterward she and Snapper separated and Chris accepted a job as a social worker working for Greg, who was now with Legal Aid.

Snapper then fell for Dr. Casey Reed, who worked at a free-clinic with him. Their relationship did not last because Casey had a fear of sex because she had been abused by her father as a child. Sally sold Pierre’s restaurant to Leslie Brooks and moved to Chicago, and Chris and Snapper reconciled.

When his mother fell in love with Sam Powers, Snapper finally convinced Liz to have their father Bill declared legally dead. Unknown to Liz and her family, Bill was alive and living in a town nearby. Penniless and diagnosed with cancer, Bill sent a letter to the family. Liz invited Bill to move back into the house, and with the exception of Snapper, the entire Foster family embraced Bill's return. Although Bill realized that he still had feelings for Liz, he put her needs above his own and encouraged Liz to continue with her plans to marry Sam. But Liz broke off her engagement to Sam because as far as she was concerned, she was still a married woman. This delighted Jill and Greg, who had hoped Liz and Bill would resume their marriage.

Bill and Liz remarried, and Snapper finally reconciled with his father, but Bill's cancer progressed quickly, and the doctors doubted that he would live out the year. Bill was eventually hospitalized and put on life support. He pleaded many times with Liz to pull the plug and let him die. Because she didn’t want to see her husband suffer, Liz agreed to his wishes. But Liz was so traumatized by doing so that she suffered a stroke and forgot that she did it. So Snapper, who was also Bill’s doctor, was accused of killing his father. Luckily Greg was now a practicing lawyer who got Snapper cleared of murder charges, and Liz was never charged. Soon after, Jill fell for David Mallory, a young man who was blind until a cornea transplant restored his vision. The eyes he received were from the deceased Bill Foster.

Liz began seeing her daughter-in-law Chris’s widowed father, newspaper publisher Stuart Brooks. Although Stuart was quite taken with Liz, she felt she was not of his class, and she avoided becoming romantically involved. In time Stuart and Liz were married, although Liz was daunted by her new life as the wife of a successful newspaper publisher. On the same day as their parent’s wedding, Snapper and Chris had a baby girl, Jennifer Elizabeth Foster, named after both grandmothers.

Soon afterward, Sally McGuire returned to Genoa City with Snapper's son, Chuckie, who was seriously ill. While Chuckie was hospitalized for a kidney operation, Sally urged Snapper to tell Chuckie that he was his father, but Snapper decided against it. Chris called Sally’s boyfriend Stan Harris, and he took them back home to Michigan where they were married, but they later were divorced.

In 1982, Snapper left Genoa City to accept a three-month fellowship opportunity in London, but Chris refused to give up her modeling career at Jabot Cosmetics. Not long afterward, Chris realized her place was with Snapper, and she joined him in London. Liz, Stuart, and Greg moved to London as well by the end of the year. Later Stuart died, and Liz moved in with Chris and Snapper, and devoted herself to help raise her granddaughter, Jennifer, who had two hard-working parents.

Out of the blue in 2003, Liz arrived in Genoa City with Snapper and Greg from their home in England with the news that she was about to undergo brain surgery. Knowing she may not survive, Liz felt it was time to admit to Jill that she had been adopted. Liz told her that her husband Bill had brought Jill home as a baby wrapped in a blanket. After a DNA test, Jill believed for years that her arch enemy, and Liz’s good friend, Katherine Chancellor had been her real mother. But another DNA test proved that Katherine was not, and Jill’s parentage again became a mystery.

In June 2010, Liz returned to Genoa City to see Jill, but was carried off the plane on a stretcher, accompanied by Snapper. Jill and Kay met them at the hospital, and Greg arrived later. Liz was diagnosed by Snapper with Wegener's disease – a rare, autoimmune disease. Fearing she may die, Liz confided one last secret about Jill’s parentage to Snapper. Snapper told Katherine, saying that he knew what it was like to regret keeping a secret, as he had about his son Chuckie, so he intended to tell Jill the truth. Each of them spent some final time with Liz talking mostly about the past and Jill. Later as she had been about to finally tell the secret to a very distraught Jill, Liz passed away. Afterward, Snapper told Jill that her real father was a very young Neil Fenmore who had gotten a girl pregnant. Neil’s family had refused to let him marry the girl, so she had abandoned her baby at the hospital and committed suicide. Lauren Fenmore was disbelieving when Jill told her the circumstances that made them half-sisters, but later looking at old photos of her deceased father, she shared the news with her husband Michael. Michael promised to find out the truth. Since Liz had requested no services be held, Snapper and Greg were preparing to leave as Jill returned home with the news that she had spoken to Lauren. Kay let the brothers know that she would look out for Jill. A DNA test proved Liz’s story was true, and Jill was indeed the daughter of Neil Fenmore.