Talented in sports, especially skiing, Lee Strathy graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science in 1914 and received his certification in 1915 as lieutenant in the Canadian Officer Training Corps. He was appointed to the 26th Battery, but at the time that he was wounded on the front, he was with the 7th Battery of the 2nd Brigade of Canadian Field Artillery. He received the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry in action.” In 1920, according to the McGill News, he was connected with the staff of Canadian General Electric Company in Peterborough, Ontario.

Donald Alexander Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal GCMG GCVOPC DL FRS was a Scottish-born Canadian businessman who became one of the British Empire’s foremost builders and philanthropists. At age sixteen he left school and emigrated to Lower Canada to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). In 1873, the HBC separated its fur trade and land sales operations, putting Smith in charge of the latter. He became commissioner, governor and principal shareholder of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was president of the Bank of Montreal and with his first cousin, Lord Mount Stephen, co-founded the Canadian Pacific Railway. During his tenure on the board, Smith drove the last spike at Craigellachie, British Columbia, to complete the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway rail line.

Smith gained his wealth through investments in Canadian and American corporations and real estate transactions in the later part of the 19th century. As a financier, he was involved in (or founded) over 80 trust structures, including the Royal Trust and the Montreal Trust. He retained significant interest in the Hudson’s Bay Company throughout his life, and in 1889 became Governor of the company that had made his name. His seventy-five year tenure with the Hudson's Bay Company remains a record. His estate was valued at $5.5 million. During his lifetime, and including the bequests left after his death, he gave away just over $7.5 million plus a further £1 million to charitable causes across Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. He and Lord Mount Stephen purchased the land and then each gave $1 million to the City of Montreal to construct and maintain the Royal Victoria Hospital. He donated generously to many universities, chief among them McGill University, Aberdeen University and Yale University. At McGill, he started the Donalda Program for the purpose of providing higher education for Canadian women, building the Royal Victoria College on Sherbrooke Street for that purpose in 1886. He also built the Strathcona Medical Building at McGill and endowed its chairs in pathology and hygiene.

He was Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1896 to 1914 chancellor of McGill University (1889–1914) and Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen. In accordance with the special remainder to the 1900 barony, his only child, a daughter, succeeded her father as Lady Strathcona.

Joseph Graham Stratford was born on September 1923, in Brantford, Ontario to Nora Wallace and Graham Stratford. He was the great-nephew of John H. Stratford, founder of the Brantford General Hospital. Joseph Stratford began his studies in the Faculty of Science at McGill University in 1943. During his studies, he became president of the McGill Osler Society. After graduation from McGill Faculty of Medicine in 1947, Stratford moved to England to continue his medical training at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London. It was here that he practiced as a house surgeon at The Royal Postgraduate Medical Centre in Hammersmith before his return to Montreal, where he completed a residency at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) under Dr. William Cone. Following his residency, he was appointed Clinical Assistant in Neurosurgery at the MNI, Fellow in Neurosurgery at the Montreal General Hospital (MGH), and Junior Consultant in Neurosurgery at Queen Mary Veteran's Hospital. He also gave lectures on neurosurgery at McGill University.

In the summer of 1952, Stratford married Aurelie Forbes, personal assistant to Wilder Penfield. The couple had a son named Huntly, and a daughter named Leslie. The Stratford family moved to Saskatchewan in 1956 where J. Stratford was appointed Professor of Surgery and Director of Neurosurgery at the University of Saskatchewan at the new neurology and neurosurgery unit created by Dr. William Feindel and Dr. Allan Bailey. Stratford later returned to Montreal in the early 1960s to join the Montreal General Hospital as Director of the Division of Neurosurgery at the behest of Dr. H. Rocke Robertson. Stratford participated in the development of a neurological intensive care ward at the McGill-MGH Pain Centre and Palliative Care Task Force. Stratford served as the 1974 President of the Canadian Neurosurgical Society and was a long standing member of the board of directors for the Victorian Order of Nurses. In 2000, he was the recipient of the Montreal General Hospital Award of Merit. Joseph Stratford passed away on July 22, 2007 while visiting his daughter and family in France.