Fraser B. (Baillie) Gurd was born on January 7, 1883, in Montreal, Quebec.
In 1906, he graduated from the McGill Medical School and began a career as a surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH), a part of three generations of the Gurd family surgeons. In 1914, at the start of WWI, he enlisted but was rejected by the Canadians due to his lack of experience. Undeterred, he was accepted by the British War Office and he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1915. He served in Air-sur-Lys, France, on the front-line where he gained tremendous medical experience treating sick and injured soldiers. He made a name for himself by changing the surgical dressing technique. In 1919, he returned to the MGH, later becoming a surgeon-in-chief. He also began an academic career at McGill University where he introduced the McGill Diploma Course in Surgery. He lobbied for a program of increasing surgical responsibility for the residents.
He participated in the work that developed the first T. B. Chest-X-Ray Clinic in Montreal.
In 1910, he married Jessie Gibson Newman. He died in February 1948 in Montreal, Quebec.
William Frank Eugene Reed Gurley was born on June 5, 1854, in Oswego, New York.
He was a paleontologist and educator. In 1861, he had measles which gave him temporary blindness, but he suffered from visual impairment until he went completely blind at age 64. At a young age, William began collecting fossils, shells, minerals, and geological specimens. His collection of fossils from Quincy, Michigan, a region where his family moved, grew and he soon began trading and exchanging for geological and fossil specimens from other regions. In 1871, the Imperial-Royal Geology Society of Austria made him a corresponding member. In 1873, he entered Cornell University and was invited as a charter member of the Swiss Paleontological Society. In 1876, he mined for gold in Colorado. In 1877, he helped found the Vermilion County Historical Society. In 1879, he was a founder of the State Historical Society of Illinois. He served as city engineer of Danville, Illinois (1885-1887, 1891-1893). In 1888, he was a founding charter member of the Geological Society of America. In 1893, he was appointed the State Geologist and museum curator of the Illinois State Museum of Natural History (1893-1897). He was a Professor of Paleontology at the University of Chicago. He also had been president of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the Revolution as well as vice-president of the national society.
In 1880, he married Anna Sophronia Barnes (1850-1918). He died on June 27, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois.
