Gwendolen Marjorie Howard was the youngest of four children of Dr. Robert Palmer Howard, a distinguished McGill University medical professor, and from 1882 until his death in 1889, the Dean of the University’s Faculty of Medicine. As his daughter, Marjorie was acquainted with numerous people whom Dr Howard knew either as students, faculty, patients, or through other social connections. These family friends included doctors Francis J. Shepherd and William Osler and their families, as well as prominent Canadians such as members of the Clouston, Sutherland, Porteous and Drury families and Lord and Lady Strathcona.