Born 1934, St Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A. She trained as a registered nurse. She married and had two children and then her family grew even more with 19 adopted children. In 1985 she founded and became director of Child Haven International which is a non-profit charitable organization. The organization helps destitute children and women throughout the world. They maintain four children's homes in India, one in Nepal, one in Tibet and one in Bangladesh. Bonnie travels to each of the children's homes four times a years. For her efforts she has been awarded the Ontario Citizenship Medal in 1985, the Canada Volunteer Award in 1986 the UNESCO Prize for teaching of Human Rights in 1998. She and her husband Fred were the 1st Canadians to win this award. In 1996 they both received the Order of Canada.

Born July 6, 1819, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Died December 6, 1874, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Isabella learned quickly and had a strong interest in finances which she may have inherited from her well known banker father. Her humanitarian inspiration may have come from being close to her brother William. After the death of her father she devoted life to bettering the educational and living conditions of the pour and disadvantaged of Halifax. Her work was mainly in support of such institutions as the Halifax Protestant Industrial School for Reformed Boys. She also endowed homes for the aged and church society. She was a patron of St Paul’s Alms House of Industry for Girls and her work and contributions were recorded in the various annual reports of this institution from 1858 through 1865. It was her business acumen that allowed to  manage her family inheritance that put her in a position to carry out her desired charitable work and financial donations. Source: D C B Vol. X p. 182

née Bernstein. Born July 23, 1926, Saint John, New Brunswick. Died February 15, 2019, Saint John, New Brunswick. Erminie attended Mount Allison University. In 1948 she married Edgar R. Cohen and the couple had three children. She worked along side of her husband in a family ladies Fashion store for 50 years. In the 1970's she was a founding member of the Saint John Women for Action, She would be a founding member and served on the Board for the Hestia House. As well she was Chair of Opera New Brunswick and Chair of the New Brunswick Adoption Foundation Board. The Salvation Army presented her a Humanitarian Service Award as did the Red Cross. She earned being a Paul Harris Fellow from the Rotary Club. She was appointed to the Senate of Canada to represent New Brunswick in 1993. She retired in 2001. She was a Member of the Order of Canada. (2019)

Born March 28. She has written a couple of books including "Comfort Hearts". Maclean's Magazine recognized her as one of 12 outstanding Canadians in 1998. Among the many awards she hold are the Terry Fox Citation of Honour, the YWCA Women's Recognition Award and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal. In 2001 she became a member of the Order of Canada

Born November 28, 1909, Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic).  Died August 1,  1990, Ottawa, Ontario. Lotta enrolled in 1929 at the University of Prague and excelled at languages earning diplomas in Czech, German, English, French, and Spanish. In 1932 she was in France studying political Science and journalism at the Sorbonne in Paris.  In 1935 she was back in Prague working as a freelance journalist and earning her Doctorate Degree (PhD) at Prague University. It was however her first hand view of the horrors of life in war torn Europe of World War ll (1939-1945) that would affect the rest of her life. She left her home and eventually settled in Brussels, Belgium. While in France she worked with an immigration service assisting refugees. One day at the Market in Marseille she fainted from fatigue and hunger and made her way to a medical clinic run by the Unitarian Service Committee (U S C). By 1945 she would make the U S C her life's mission and work. She emigrated to Canada and was founder in June 1945 and a tireless worker of the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada (now SeedChange). She served as the first chairperson until 1949. In 1948 it cut its association with the Unitarian Church and became an independent organization with Lotta as executive director raising funds as a registered charity. In 1949 she spearheaded a foster parent program allowing Canadian to sponsor a child and receive a photo and story of that child.  Always attired in the uniform of an army nurse with a military-style hat, Lotta traveled annually to strife-torn and poor area of the world searching out villages in need of Canadian assistance to recover from war, natural disaster, disease, and poverty. Her background in journalism  brought he into notice by world press. Internationally she was recognized for her works with humanitarian awards from France, Korea, Greece, India, and her adopted Canadian homeland with the Order of Canada. In 1970 she published a book, The USC Story: a Quarter Century of Loving Service.  1n 1972 the U S C produced a film, The USC Story, showing film clips of Lotta's travel over 25 years. People who are presented with awards often wear a small coloured ribbon signifying their award. Dr Hitschmanova had five rows of ribbons to wear!!!! She retired in 1982 because of ill health. Her 'Uniform' is preserved at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Vernon Burrows, a scientist in oat research, has named one of his new varieties after Lotta, ACLotta. In 2002 the U S C Canada founded the Lotta Hitschmanova Endowment Fund to collect funds to support programs. . (20204

Born February 23, 1907, Truro, Nova Scotia. Died March 21, 2005, Ottawa, Ontario. Evelyn started her working career as a teacher in a one room school in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While working in the office of the Provincial Secretary she caught the attention of Prime Minister Mackenzie King (1874-1950) in 1941 and she moved to Ottawa to work in the PM's secretariat. She would later serve in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the National Film Board retiring at the age of 69. By the age 74 she was working as acting Director of the Canadian Hearing Society. After her retirement she was also president of the Youth Services Bureau as well as a long-standing and forceful member of the Quota Club of Ottawa. She was presented with the Caring Canadian Award by the Governor General of Canada and a Community Builder Award from the United way and a Living legend Award from the Quota Club. (2024)

née Brooks-Johnson. Born 1900, St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. Died  July 26, 1965, French Rivera.  April 5, 1922 she married Izaak Walton Killam (died 1955) and the couple settled in Montreal, Quebec. After the death of her husband Dorothy too over the family financial business, Royal Securities, and expanded it over the next ten years. In August 1960 and article in the Ladies Home Journal featured Dorothy as ‘the Richest Woman in the World’.  She made anonymous donations to several institutions such as Canada Council to advance the study of medicine, science and engineering by Canadians, and to Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.  April 1960 she became a benefactress of the Metropolitan Opera Association financing shows. Her will provided a substantial bequest to build a children’s hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as a memorial to her husband. The Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children opened in 1970. After visiting Halifax she left Montreal and resettled in Halifax. She financed the Killam Memorial Library, Dalhousie University, Halifax. She also donated to four additional Canadian Universities. The Killam Trust offers awards through five Canadian Universities. As of 2015 more than 6,000 scholars and researchers had benefited from the Killam Trusts Awards. not on find a grave 2024

Philanthropist

Born June 7, 1934, White Plains, New York, U.S.A. Died September 12, 2001, Montreal, Quebec. She worked as a director of the CBC and of Cineplex Odeon Corporation and was a trustee of the National Film Board of Canada. She was also a founding vice-president of Canadian International Studios. As a philanthropist she was a patron of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Stratford Festival, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.  For her support of the arts she was inducted into the Order of Canada in 1993. As a volunteer she earned in 1994 the Raymon John Hnatyshyn Award for Volunteerism in the Performing Arts. She was the 1st woman to sit on the board of the United Talmud Torah, and was an active fundraiser for various Jewish charities including the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital where this is a pavilion named for her and her husband Leo Kolber. The couple had two children. (2018)

née Rogers. Born April 30, 1899, Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Died May 11, 1967. As a young woman she was a founding member and president of the Junior League of Winnipeg and in 1933 she was the Canadian representative the the Junior League of America. In 1936 she was the chair of the Manitoba campaign of child-care division of the Canadian Welfare Council. During world War ll (1939-1945) she worked on the home front in the Patriotic Salvage Corps, Bundles for Britain and the Women's Volunteer Services in Western Canada. For her war efforts she was awarded with the Order of the British Empire. After the death of her husband in 1954, she devoted herself even more to her humanitarian work visiting Asia on behalf of UNICEF. She turned successfully to politics and in 1963 became the first woman from Manitoba to be elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa. In 1965 she became the national chair of the UNICEF Committee and traveled to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Pilippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Indai, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Ghana, Nigeria, Sourth Africa, Rhodesia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and the United Arab Republic. 

née Molson. Born April 8, 1824, Quebec. Died January 3, 1899. She married her cousin John Molson, June 9, 1895. They would have three children that survived infancy. In 1864 she suggested an award and designed a medal to be given to the best student in Physics, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at McGill College. Perhaps it was this event which called her to lobby to have women students at McGill. She became the 1st President of the Montreal Ladies Educational Association which was founded in May 1871. She would see women accepted at McGill in 1884. She was also active in the Montreal Ladies Benevolent Society and the Montreal Society of Decorative Arts. There is not much in the way of written accounts of Anne Molson as she left no diaries and there is little detail provided in Molson family archives.

née Archer. Born March 28, 1898, Montreal, Quebec. Died March March 23, 1991, Trosly-Breuil, France. A trained nurse, Pauline volunteered for the Red Cross  at a military convalescent hospital from 1917-1919 during World War l and the Spanish flu epidemic. She married George Philias Vanier (1888-1967), a lawyer on September 29, 1921. The couple had five children. Pauline's training as wife and mother was used outside of the home as a Red Cross volunteer in Paris, France, during and after the Second World War (1939-1945). She is one of the few Canadians to have been honoured by France for her services with the Jacques Cartier Medal. Pauline would support her husband in all of his diplomatic postings abroad. As Canada's firs ambassador to France until 1953 Pauline helped war refugees and lobbied for changes to Canadian immigration laws allowing refugees to settle in Canada from 1947 to 1953.  and as "First Lady" of Canada when Georges Vanier  served as Governor General of Canada from 1959 through 1967. In 1963 the Children's Aid and Catholic Social Services groups created the Madame Vanier Children's Services. In 1965 the couple founded the Vanier Institute of the Family, a nonprofit organization promoting awareness and understanding of complexity and diversity of Canadian families. In 1965 she became the first woman appointed  Chancellor of the University of Ottawa. That same year the Canadian Press named her Woman of the Year.  On April 11, 1967 she became the first non-political woman to be appointed to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, a group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs. November 24, 1967 she was inaugurated as a Companion of the Order of Canada for her humanitarian work. A widow, and now in her 70's, she moved to France where she worked with her famous son, Jean Vanier, and the institution he founded called L'Arche, a refuge for the mentally handicapped. A Catholic elementary school in Brampton and a middle school in Ottawa are named in her Honour. A park in Ottawa bears her name. Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp commemorating Pauline Vanier and Elizabeth Smellie as part of the Millennium series January 17, 2000. Source: Canadian Encyclopedia online