For her 97th birthday, Frances Belzberg had a request. She wanted to try something she hadn’t yet: skydiving. She had a blast.

When she turned 98 in July, 2025, she ziplined at Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain. In order to be eligible, staff informed her, she needed to be able to raise her legs. Could she? Oh, yes, she could, and then some. Pilates.

This is the spirit in which Ms. Belzberg, Fran to all, lived: embracing every opportunity, every human being, life – to the fullest. She wanted the best for her family, for the people in her circle, including her caregivers – and the world. She lived with exuberance, empathy, humour, wisdom and spirit; with an open heart and an open wallet.

A notable philanthropist, she was named to the Order of Canada in 1995 and the Order of British Columbia in 2021. Ms. Belzberg, along with her late husband, Samuel, who had amassed great wealth in business, championed numerous causes, establishing the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation and helping to create the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, where she was the founding chair. This was one of many Jewish causes they supported. They also provided funding for AIDS research; generously supported the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and BC Children’s Hospital; and partnered with the federal government to establish Action Canada, which provides fellowships for potential future policy-makers.

“Fran’s loss is the family’s loss first, but it is also Canada’s loss,” Burnaby North-Seymour MP and Action Canada alumnus Terry Beech said Sunday at her funeral, where he also delivered formal condolences from the Prime Minister.

Ms. Belzberg had been raised in Los Angeles under difficult circumstances, in an immigrant family that had cheated death. She never lost her work ethic or forgot her humble beginnings – even as the dynasty she and her husband built allowed her beautiful homes in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood and in Palm Springs, Calif., trips around the world and Bentley convertibles. After being told it was no longer safe for her to be behind the wheel, Fran missed driving so desperately that she stole the keys and took her car out for one last joyride, the desert wind in her blond hair.

But she had hardships. When her oldest daughter, Cheri, started experiencing mysterious uncontrollable leg movements and later lost her ability to speak, the Belzbergs spent two years trying to figure out what was wrong. Some doctors suggested this was the result of hysteria, brought on by her decision to become religiously observant. When she was finally diagnosed with a rare form of the neurological movement disorder dystonia, the Belzbergs established a foundation to conduct research and provide support.

“Mum said, ‘I’m never going to let another family go through that,’” her youngest daughter, Lisa Belzberg, said in an interview.

In 1976, the Belzbergs co-founded the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation. Now operating in Canada and the United States, it funds research and fellowships to encourage specialization and has established support networks. Fran remained actively involved; as honourary chair, she attended the most recent DMRF Canada board meeting in April, where she welcomed new board members. She had planned to be at the next meeting in August.

At home, she was the fun mom – taking her kids out early from school to go skiing at Grouse and, later, making each and every grandchild feel as if they were her favourite.

“She wasn’t just open to adventure, she was often leading the charge,” her grandson Cooper Zelnick said at her funeral. He also recalled his grandmother’s 96th-birthday surprise for her shocked luncheon guests: male strippers. “Thank God she didn’t make it to 100,” he joked. “I have no idea what she would have done.”

There were no daredevil stunts on her 99th birthday this month, beyond living bravely despite a new mysterious problem that made it difficult for her to eat. Returning from the hospital to a condo filled with balloons and flowers, she watched old movies and hung out with family. Her health deteriorated over the next two weeks.

“I’m ready,” she told her family, Lisa said, in the days ahead of her death at midnight on July 25. “Please let me go.”

Frances was born July 10, 1927, in Los Angeles to David and Dena Cooper, who had left Radom, Poland, in 1923. David died when Fran was only 17. Dena scraped together the money to buy some small apartment buildings, and Fran and her brothers Bert, Harry and Ben were enlisted to collect rent, fix things for tenants and clean out empty suites.

As a teenager, Fran volunteered to work with new immigrants from Mexico and helped people from marginalized communities learn to read and write English. She was a beauty; an aspiring actress, she modelled on two Hollywood studio lots. But before fame came calling, love interrupted.

A former suitor of her mother’s from back in Poland, now living in Edmonton, got in touch. His son Samuel was going to be visiting Los Angeles on business, driving a car from his dealership in Alberta to a customer in California. Could he drop in? It didn’t work out for us, he said, but I hear you have a daughter about the same age as my son.

“He walks in the door, he falls in love, Mum falls in love, they have a few dates. And that’s it,” Lisa said.

Fran and Sam married in 1950, and Fran arrived in Edmonton on a very cold November day. It was difficult and lonely at first, but she quickly became active in the Jewish community. “She went from licking envelopes at Hadassah to running Hadassah to running around the country speaking for Hadassah,” Lisa said.

In Edmonton, they had four children: Cheri, Marc, Wendy and Lisa.

Finally, with business going very well, Sam asked Fran to choose between a move to Toronto or Vancouver. She picked the latter, where she could ski, play tennis, be outside. They moved in 1967.

Fran sat on many boards and became involved in causes that spoke to her, including the Vancouver Art Gallery. She supported its “take the gallery to court” campaign that would see the VAG move from its original space to its current location, a renovated courthouse.

She was an art lover herself, collecting the Canadian works that hung in her husband’s offices. On her own walls, Jack Shadbolt and Dorothy Knowles were particular favourites.

Lisa recalled buying jeans at the mall with her mother in 1985 when the woman at the counter recognized the name on her mother’s credit card. The woman then recounted how years earlier, she had cold-called Fran, looking for advice about opening her own art gallery. Fran had spent an hour on the phone with her, telling her to follow her dreams – which she did (she was working retail part-time to supplement her gallery income). “Your mother changed my career and gave me the confidence to try something I’ve never tried before,” she told Lisa. “I just dreamed that I’d meet her one day.”

Sam died in 2018, after suffering a stroke while working at his desk. At his funeral, Fran offered input to speakers as they eulogized her husband, interjecting with comments such as “that’s enough, sit down, and stop crying,” Mr. Zelnick recalled at her funeral.

After that, she gave up the house for an ocean-view condo in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour. She loved to look out as the seaplanes took off and landed.

In her last years, Ms. Belzberg was shaken by the antisemitism that followed the attacks on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s resulting war in Gaza.

After Oct. 7, the sign at SFU Vancouver’s Samuel and Frances Belzberg Library at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue was defaced. In a newspaper editorial, Ms. Belzberg expressed hope, arguing that ugliness and hate were the enemy of resolution. “Even in my grief and outrage, I am convinced there is much to discuss, much to learn, on the road to recovery and, God willing, peace and reconciliation.”

Frances Belzberg leaves her four children, 25 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren (plus two on the way), the youngest of whom, Miles, was born July 9, the day before Fran turned 99. Family flew in from all over the world to be by her side.

“She had an amazing, amazing life,” Mr. Zelnick said in an interview. “To make it to 99 and be surrounded by family, it’s not so bad.”

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