[2] In 2008, she was designated a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian Government for being "a gifted organizer and philanthropist who worked to improve the health and welfare of her fellow citizens.
"[3] In 1885, Lillian Freiman was born at Mattawa, Ontario to Pauline Reich, a homemaker,[2] and Moses Bilsky, who was a Jewish-Canadian merchant and community leader, thought to have been the first Jewish settler in Ottawa.
[6] When John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields became famous, many campaigns were introduced to have the poppy adopted as a symbol of remembrance and a means of raising funds for veterans.
[6] With media support, she launched a campaign disseminating not only progress reports but also information designed to help prevent the spread of the influenza.
[5] She accomplished this by raising money for the Helping Hand Fund of Hadassah, by traveling acrossing Canada, and securing about $200,000 from 120,000 Jews, most of them recent immigrants.
[2] Beyond this, she had been involved with leadership roles in the Ottawa Welfare Bureau,[5] the Protestant Infants Home,[7] the Canadian Institute for the Blind, the Red Cross Society, the Amputations Association of Great War Veterans of Canada, the Salvation Army, the Big Sisters’ Association, the YMCA, the Joan of Arc Society.
[1] The Moshav Havatselet HaSharon in Israel's Emeq Hefer, land purchased by the Jewish National Fund with contributions by Canadians including the Freiman family, is named for her.
[2] Her funeral was attended by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, Ottawa Mayor Stanley Lewis, and a Royal Canadian Legion honour guard.
[6] On December 29, 1941, a tablet was unveiled by Major-General L.F. LaFleche, Associate Deputy Minister of National War Services at Trafalgar House that was inscribed: In loving memory and to the honour of Mrs. A.J.