Louisa Goddard Frothingham Molson


Louisa Goddard Frothingham Molson, known socially as Mrs. John H. R. Molson, was a Canadian philanthropist.

Early life

Louisa Goddard Frothingham was born in Montreal, Lower Canada, the daughter of John Frothingham. Her father had a hardware business. She was the namesake of her mother, Louisa Goddard Archibald Frothingham; she had a similarly-named sister-in-law, Louisa Davenport Hayward Frothingham.

Philanthropy

When she was 18 years old, Frothingham joined the management commmittee of the Montreal Protestant Orphan Asylum. She continued to be active in the administration of the asylum for the next 64 years. She was also a manager of the Protestant Infants' Home of Montreal, a manager of the Mackay Institute, and a life governor of the Montreal Maternity Hospital. Beginning in 1890, she served on the board of governors at the Protestant Hospital for the Insane. She was the second president of the Montreal Ladies' Educational Association, succeeding her sister-in-law Anne Molson.
Molson had an inherited fortune, and made significant donations and bequests to many of her causes, including the above-named charities, McGill University, Montreal General Hospital, the Art Association of Montreal, the Mount Royal Cemetery, the Montreal Ladies' Benevolent Society, and the Unitarian Church of the Messiah. In 1895, she was an honoured guest at the opening ceremonies for the new medical campus at McGill.

Personal life

Frothingham married businessman John Henry Robinson Molson in 1873. They were close to Molson's nephew, Harry Markland Molson, the mayor of Dorval, who was a passenger on the Titanic. She was widowed in 1897, and she died in 1910, three days before her 83rd birthday.