Cecil Owen Walsh was born July 28, 1892 in Canso, Nova Scotia. His father was a fisherman. He received his M.D., C.M. from McGill University in 1915.

During World War I, he enlisted as a medical student in the No. 3 Canadian General Hospital. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the rank of lieutenant. In 1936, he became a US citizen and moved to New York.

Arthur Walsh was born in Kingston, Ontario. He suspended his studies at McGill in 1916 to enlist in the Canadian Army Dental Corps, but returned after the war to receive his D.D.S. in 1920. After serving as Clinical Demonstrator at the McGill Dental Infirmary in the Montreal General Hospital, he was appointed director of the Dental Clinic in 1924. Walsh became Associate Professor of operative dentistry in 1925, and Professor of dental surgery in 1936. He was also Acting Dean of the Faculty from 1927 until 1940, when he was formally named Dean. He stepped down as Dean in 1947 and retired as Emeritus Professor in 1955. Deeply concerned with dental education, Walsh was a key figure in the formation of the Council on Education of the Canadian Dental Association, and a proponent of a biological approach to the teaching of dentistry.

Colonel Hugh Wallis was born in San Francisco and educated at University of Toronto. He served overseas in World War I, was twice mentioned in dispatches, and was awarded the D.S.O. and M.C. From 1924 until 1953 he was managing director and president of Mount Royal Rice Mills, but he maintained his military connection as Colonel and Commandant of the Black Watch in Canada, 1930-1931, and as Honorary A.D.C. to the Governor-General, 1931-1935. During World War II, he served as Colonel A.D.A.G. and was awarded an O.B.E. Wallis is an active patron of Lakefield Preparatory School, Trent University, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and numerous social and military associations.

Eleanor Wallis was born Eleanor Fisher in Philadelphia in 1906. She received her nurse's training in Philadelphia at the Training School for Nurses of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1929, with a course in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. While attending a lecture at the Philadelphia Academy of Music, she learned of the work of the Grenfell Mission during a talk given by Sir Wilfred Grenfell, on a speaking and fundraising tour. She volunteered soon after for an 18-month tour of duty at St. Anthony's, Newfoundland, during 1933 and 1934, where she nursed at the main hospital and paid house calls to outlying fishing posts, often by dog sled during the winter. Eleanor Fisher later returned to U.S. and in June of 1934 married Dr. Allan Dinsmore Wallis Jr. in New Jersey. The couple had had four sons and resided in Philadelphia.