Israel Brodsky, known as “Izzy,” who as an adult changed his name to Roy C. Bennett, is famous as half of the song-writing team Tepper and Bennett. He was born in Brooklyn into a Jewish Eastern European immigrant family. He began song writing at the age of eleven. His friend as a child was a boy named Sid Tepper, and the boys’ mutual interest in music led to a 25-year collaboration. Bennett studied music at City College of New York but dropped out to serve in the US Air Force intelligence. After the war both boys worked for Sydney Mills of Mills Music, Inc. Their songs were recorded by many top singers. Between 1945 and 1970, when Tepper retired to Florida after a heart attack, the team published some 300 songs. Forty-two of them were recorded by Elvis Presley. Among their best-known songs were “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” and “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane,” the latter a humorous description of a nine-day old baby that was sung by the Ames Brothers. In his forties, Bennett returned to finish college as an example to his twin sons. The team was honoured in 2002 in Memphis by Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie, for the many songs they had written for her father. Bennett and Tepper died on the same day in 2015 in Queeens, New York and Miami Beach, Florida, respectively.

Born in 1883 in Waterloo, Quebec, S. J. Bennett trained as a physician at McGill's Faculty of Medicine. He is listed as a member of the class of 1908 according to the McGill yearbook. He also attended Tufts University in Boston from 1903-1904. He later resided in Cookshire, Quebec. He was the husband of Gladys Dickson.

Edward Horton Bensley was born in Toronto and graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1930, as a gold medallist. He then came to Montreal to take up an internship at the Montreal General Hospital. He eventually became director of the Montreal General Hospital's Department of Metabolism and Toxicology. He also taught biochemistry, medicine and experimental medicine in the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University. During World War II, Major Bensley served with No. 14 Canadian General Hospital. He was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, and a member of numerous societies relating to medical biology and chemistry, in whose journals he published widely. In the 1960s, he consecutively became Associate Dean, Acting Dean and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill. In 1968, he joined the Department of History of Medicine. Dr. Bensley was appointed as Honorary Librarian of the Osler Library in 1979.

Robert Hugh Benson was a British priest and author, the youngest son of the archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson. Nicknamed “Brer Rabbit” by his sister, He had a classical education at Eton, followed by Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. In 1895 he was ordained as an Anglican priest by his father who died the following year. He then went to the Middle East where he did some soul-searching, and on his return, in 1901, joined an Anglican religious group of men, the Community of the Resurrection, in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. He seems to have undergone an epiphany and amazed family and friends by converting to Catholicism in 1903. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1904. His first ministry was as a college chaplain, and despite a stutter, he was a popular speaker. He also began a parallel career in writing: he wrote some religious essays and books, but his production of fiction, like that of his brothers, Edward Frederick Benson and Arthur Christopher Benson, was prolific. He penned ghost stories, horror stories, historical novels, children’s stories, plays and science fiction. His Lord of the World (1909) is one of the first dystopian novels. Not a translator by training, he nevertheless translated into English Brahm’s Alto Rhapsody on Herzreise in Winter (with words from Goethe) as well as several of Brahms’ songs. In 1911 he was appointed supernumerary private chamberlain to Pope Pius X with the title of “monsignor.” In 1914 he was invited to speak at Notre Dame University; the university’s Ave Maria magazine had earlier serialized two of his writings before their publication as books: Confessions of a Convert (1913) and Lourdes (1914). He died of pneumonia that same year.