Mabel H. Grosvenor

Mabel Harlakenden Grosvenor (July 28, 1905 – October 30, 2006) was a Canadian-born American pediatrician. She was a granddaughter and secretary to the scientist and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell.

She lived and grew up in both the Beinn Bhreagh estate where she was born, as well as her parents' home near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. In 1912, her parents moved to a large farm in North Bethesda, Maryland, at what later became the Grosvenor Metro station.

Death In her later years she suffered from congestive heart failure but decided to stay on at the Bell estate due to her close relationship with the people of the community.

Witness to inventions, discoveries and history Grosvenor, front row, left, at the unveiling of the Bell Telephone Memorial in 1917. To the right is her name source and grandmother, Mabel Hubbard (Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell), and then her mother Elsie May Grosvenor. Alexander Graham Bell, her grandfather, is rear row, centre. (Courtesy: Bell Homestead National Historic Site)

Grosvenor was closely connected to her grandfather by kinship, and professionally as his secretary. She had spent considerable time with him at both the Beinn Bhreagh estate and in Washington, D.C., as well as during his international trips, and was regarded as an authority on Bell to journalists and writers who sought greater detail on the scientist-inventor.

Grosvenor was a very young witness to a signature event in the Bells' development of flight at Baddeck Bay in 1907, when the Bells' associates launched the Cygnet, an early towed kite experiment of their Aerial Experiment Association. Dr. Bell later wrote: "I almost forgot to mention the witness who will probably live the longest after this event (and remember least about it) — my little granddaughter Miss Mabel Grosvenor — 2 years of age." They found several cousins he did not know existed by scouring genealogical records in Scotland, the land of Bell's birth.

Alexander Graham Bell Club

The Alexander Graham Bell Club, founded in 1891, became Canada's oldest continuing women's club, and grew out of a social organization started at Beinn Bhreagh by Mabel Bell, Grosvenor's grandmother. Grosvenor was made its Honorary President until her death in 2006. The club, originally created as The Young Ladies Of Baddeck Club, was renamed in 1922 after Bell's death, and after Mabel Bell declined the use of her name.

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