Adelaide Hoodless, ca. 1948, copied by Marion Long (1882-1970), after J.W.L. Forster (1850-1938)

When her infant son John died from drinking contaminated milk, quality of life through home science education became Adelaide Hoodless’ cause.

Mrs. Hoodless (1857-1910) formed the first Women’s Institute organized by farm women at Stoney Creek, Ontario, in 1897 and helped establish the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the National Council of Women and the VON (Victorian Order of Nurses) in Canada. She advanced domestic science by writing the subject’s first Ontario textbook, establishing the first teacher training school and initiating courses at Guelph, Ontario.

The original portrait done in 1907 by John Wycliffe Lowes Forster is at the MacDonald Institute Building at the Ontario Agricultural College, Guelph. In 1950, the Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario donated this painting of their founder Adelaide Sophia Hunter Hoodless to Canada.

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