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George Durnford was born on August 1, 1838, in Toronto, Ontario.

He was a chartered accountant. He was educated in Montreal, Quebec and worked for a ship-building company Loomis & Swell, in Quebec City for two years. Then he returned to Montreal to enter the service of the Upper Canada Bank, eventually moving to Kingston, Ontario where he became manager of the Bank of British North America (1874-1880). Then he again returned to Montreal and set up his own firm of chartered accountancy. He had a very distinguished clientele and remained in Montreal until his death in 1922. He was a member of the Montreal Antiquarian and Numismatic Society and the Historical Landmarks Association. One of the legacies of this interest is an article that he wrote for The Daily Witness, published on September 19, 1896, entitled “Stories of Fifty Years Ago. Old Côte St. Antoine”. In it, he describes many of the old houses along Côte St. Antoine Road and their inhabitants. The text included several delightful drawings by the author. He kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings on various topics, with his own writings, paintings, and drawings, extending from 1896 to 1919. His great-grandson, Michael Ellwood, donated the scrapbook to the Westmount Historical Association in 2007.

In the 1860s, he married Melanie Vardon (1841–1917). He died on December 6, 1922, in Montreal, Quebec.

Rolf Duschenes was a prominent Canadian architect born in Hamburg, Germany of Austrian and German parents. He left Germany in 1937 and spent two years living in Prague, Switzerland and England before being accepted by Canada as a refugee and "enemy alien" and interned from 1940 to 1942. He was privately sponsored to leave the internment camp at Sherbrooke, Quebec to study architecture at McGill University. He joined Ross & MacDonald Architects in Montreal . In 1948 he firm sent him to St. John New Brunswick to work on a project and he liked the city so much he moved there and opened a branch of the Montreal firm.

He became a partner at the firm (renamed Duschenes, Fish & Stars) in 1959, a number of his designs won prizes, and he was eventually made president of the Architectural Association of New Brunswick and a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC). In 1983, he was awarded the Order of Canada for his achievements a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC).

Rolf supplemented his work in housing design with involvement in community and provincial affairs. He was a founding member of the Saint John Symphony; President of the Symphony and of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra; and was a friend and patron of many local artists. He was also a Board Member of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum. Rolf received the Order of Canada (1983) and Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002). and the Order of New Brunswick.

Rolf died in St. John, New Brunswick, in 2014. He and his wife had 5 daughters. 6 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.