Molly Dobson - Ann Arbor

Molly Hunter Dobson is a local philanthropist. She was one of the founders of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, and received its Heritage Award in 1992. She also helped launch the Washtenaw Community College Foundation, endowing scholarships and helping refurbish WCC's child care center.

Molly Dobson at an April 2009 annual meeting of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. (Photo courtesy of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.)

She has served in a variety of volunteer positions over the years. She was honorary co-chair of the Ann Arbor City Club’s 2012 capital campaign, and has raised funds for Avalon Housing, the Humane Society of Huron Valley, the Ann Arbor YMCA, the McKinley Foundation, and the United Way of Washtenaw County. She was an early supporter of the Ann Arbor Teen Center and, as former president of the Lucile B. Conger Alumnae Group in the mid-60s, formed an early relationship with University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women (CEW), serving on its Leadership Council for many years. She received the 2006 U-M David B. Hermelin Award for Fundraising Volunteer Leadership and in 2007, received a Community Foundation Award for Philanthropy. She also served on the Michigan Difference Campaign as a member of its Washtenaw County Committee.

She endowed the CEW's Molly H. Dobson scholarship – given at the graduate, professional and undergraduate levels to women whose education has been interrupted – and the Molly Dobson Child Care scholarship at Washtenaw Community College.

Molly graduated from Walnut Hill School for the Arts, a boarding school in Natick, MA, in 1940. Dobson had lived in Ann Arbor since her early teens and then graduated from the University of Michigan. In 1944 she enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served as a communications officer in Washington, D.C. with the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Training (WAVES). She later returned to Ann Arbor after World War II.

She was married to William "Bill" T. Dobson, president of the former Dobson-McOmber Insurance Agency, who died in 2003. They had three children, including Peter Dobson, who died in an auto accident at age 21. The Peter Dobson Fund at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation supports local programs and organizations that preserve and enhance the environment of the Ann Arbor area and assist in its beautification. Another son, Steve Dobson, also served as president and CEO of Dobson-McOmber Insurance until its sale to the Hylant Group in 2005.

Molly Dobson is the great niece of Carrie and Harry Boyd Earhart, whose 400-acre estate along the Huron River was located where Concordia University stands today.