housemother

plural housemothers

1. The mother of a family; the female head of household, or of any collection of persons living as a family or in common, as in a primitive community.

   At length, the aged house-mother died, or rather slept away into the other world, without pain or sickness, from absolute decay; leaving her solitary partner to mourn her loss, and with an unfeigned longing to join her in the grave.

   1822, Purvis and Co. (publisher), The Literary Melange; Or, Weekly Register of Literature and the Arts, page 264

2. A woman in charge of a residence for young people to look after them.