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Charles Bibby was born in Manchester, England on September 15, 1880. The son of a Confectioner, Bibby was the oldest male of four children. After studying accounting and becoming a public accountant, Bibby immigrated to Canada with his wife Mary Swain (1881-1967) in March 1903. The couple settled in North Bay where Bibby worked as a clerk, and later as an accountant for the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

The Bibby family suffered several tragedies while in North Bay with the deaths of three daughters (Isabella Bibby June 1902 [Lancashire, England] - January 10, 1904 [North Bay, cause: bronchitis for 2 weeks], Georgina May Bibby September 14, 1904 - August 28, 1905, [cause: diarrhea for 3 weeks], and Beatrice Bibby October 1, 1905 - September 3, 1906 [cause: diarrhea for 5 weeks]). On October 19, 1910, the couple had their last and only surviving child Charles Fredrick Bibby (who later became Warden Bibby with the Ministry of Natural Resources). Shortly afterwards (before June 1911), the Bibby family moved to Sudbury due to a transfer with the CPR.

While in Sudbury, Charles Bibby continued to work for the CPR and later gained employment as an accountant for the Sudbury-Copper Cliff Street Railway until his retirement in 1945. He also belonged to the Nickel Lodge 427 of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons (he was initiated in Sudbury in 1918, became a Worshipful Master in 1924 and a Grand Steward in 1959) as well as the Tuscan Chapter 95 Royal Arch Masons, Mavar Preceptory 65, the Sudbury Shrine Club, and Rameses Shriners Temple in Toronto.

In 1928, Charles Bibby was elected mayor of the Town of Sudbury and was re-elected in 1929, the year before the town became a city.

Charles Bibby passed away on August 7, 1970 at the age of 89.

Florence Vale, Canadian artist, was born on April 18, 1909 in llford, Essex, England and died on July 23, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her family immigrated to Toronto two years after her birth, where she grew up with an interest in music. She married artist Albert Franck on June 8, 1929, and together they bought a house on Hazelton Avenue in Toronto which became a centre for artists, writers, musicians, and critics. Florence Vale was the mother of two children, Trudy (who died as an infant) and Anneke.
Florence Vale began to paint with her husband’s paints and brushes in the late 1940’s with no previous artistic training – only what she had learned under the influence of her husband and the artists who visited her home. Her art was influenced by Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, and the works of Paul Klee. After her husband’s death in 1973, Florence Vale continued to express her artistic ability with oil paints, collages, and ink, also including her own poetry in some of her works. Many of her works, most prominently after the death of her husband, were erotic, while still viewed by critics as keeping a whimsical, innocent tone. Her art appeared in exhibitions throughout Ontario, with exhibitions also in Quebec and New York, U.S.A. She was associated with the Gadatsy Gallery, Toronto.

Dr. Yehoshua (Shieky) Brownstone is a photographer in London, Ontario. He was formerly a Professor in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Western Ontario.

David Brown Milne (Burgoyne, Ontario 1882 – Bancroft, Ontario 1953) was a painter and etcher; he is widely considered to be among the most outstanding Canadian artists. He worked as a schoolteacher before deciding to study painting in New York where, in 1903, he enrolled in the Art Students’ League. Milne supported himself through commercial artwork but actively and successfully developed his own painting, exhibiting five canvases in the famous Armory Show of 1913. His friends during this period included James (“René”) Clarke, with whom he maintained a correspondence for many years. In 1916, Milne and his wife Patsy (née May Frances Hagerty), whom he had married in 1912, left the city and settled in Boston Corners, New York. In late 1917 Milne joined the Canadian army as a private, and in 1918 was appointed as a war artist to record the locations of battles that had involved Canadian troops. Milne returned to Boston Corners in 1919, where he spent most of his winters until 1928, summering in the Adirondacks. He moved to Ottawa for one year in 1923, when the National Gallery of Canada bought six of his watercolours. In 1928, Milne moved permanently back to Ontario (he separated from his wife in 1933), spending extended periods of time alone in the wilderness regions north of Toronto. Palgrave, a short drive from Toronto, became Milne’s home from 1930 to 1933, and from 1933 to 1939 he lived in a cabin on Six Mile Lake near Georgian Bay. He maintained an interest in the Toronto art scene and developed a small group of patrons including Alice and Vincent Massey, and Douglas Duncan of the Picture Loan Society, who acted as Milne’s agent and dealer for many years. He met his second wife Kathleen Pavey in 1938 and lived with her from 1939; their only child David Jr. was born in 1941. The Milnes lived in Uxbridge from 1940 to 1946. From 1947 Milne lived and worked at Baptiste Lake, with Kathleen and David Jr. joining him periodically. As Milne’s health deteriorated, the family moved to Bancroft to be closer to Baptiste Lake. Milne died at Bancroft in December 1953. His work is represented in numerous public collections, notably the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Elaine Briere is a Vancouver documentary-maker, photographer, journalist and social justice activist. Her documentary, Bitter Paradise: The Sell-Out of East Timor, won the best political documentary award at the Hot Docs Festival, North America’s preeminent documentary film showcase, in 1997. In addition to her work on East Timor, which includes a published collection of photographs (Testimony: Photographs of East Timor, Between the Lines, 2004), Briere has directed a documentary on Canadian merchant seamen, Betrayed: The Story of Canadian Merchant Seamen (1997), and has produced photo-journalism and print articles for "The Tyee", "Briarpatch", "Our Times", and other publications dedicated to labour and social justice issues. Briere’s photographs have appeared in many publications including, Carte Blanche Photography 1 (2004); The Other Mexico: The North American Triangle Completed (1996), South East Asia Tribal Groups and Ethnic Minorities (1987) and The Family of Women (1979). Her photographs have been featured in exhibits in Canada, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

The Heit family first moved to the Garson, Ontario area shortly after Jacob "Jack" Heit (1914-1999) married Katherine "Kay" Kraft (1918-2009) on February 5, 1940 at Christ the King Church in Sudbury, Ontario. Prior to this time, both Jacob Heit and Katherine Kraft lived in Saskatchewan. The Heit's raised their family of five daughters, Diana, Janet, Marilyn, Kathy, and Susan in Garson, Ontario.