Thomas Shearer Stewart was born on October 25, 1882, in Prince Albert, then the Northwest Territories, now Saskatchewan.

In 1884, following the sudden death of his father, his mother returned with her three young children to Montreal. As a young boy, Tom had injured his right eye and, in 1899, when he was 16, he severely injured the same eye. A doctor was summoned to the family’s country home in Beaconsfield but, much to the horror of Tom’s family, the surgeon removed the good eye, leaving Tom totally blind. On hearing of the tragedy, William C. Macdonald, founder of the Macdonald Tobacco Company and one of the Royal Trust’s directors, formed a group of 60 Montreal businessmen to set up a trust for Thomas. The income from this trust helped Thomas attend McGill University, where he studied law with his younger brother William who read the law texts to him, and their sister Graham was given special permission to write Thomas’ examinations. In 1908, at graduation, Tom and Will were awarded the gold and silver medals respectively and left for France, where they continued their studies in Dijon. Upon their return to Montreal, they set up a law practice together. When World War I broke out, Will enlisted, and tragically, he was killed in action on October 20, 1918. Tom continued practicing law until his retirement during World War II.

He never let his blindness restrict his life. He married Margaret Alice Gardner in 1913 and together they had six children. He was an avid fisherman and woodsman, who loved to swim, dive, paddle, and row both for pleasure and in competition.
He died on December 23, 1965, in Montreal, Quebec.

Roderick Stewart was a high school history teacher and writer in Toronto. He spent over 30 years researching the life of Dr. Norman Bethune which began after showing the 1964 National Film Board documentary Bethune to his history class. He wrote several books on Norman Bethune, including Bethune (1973), The Mind of Norman Bethune (1978), Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune (2011), and Bethune in Spain (2014). He contributed to a documentary on Bethune before his death. He also wrote Wilfrid Laurier: A Pledge for Canada (2002) and several high school history textbooks along with editing books for major Canadian educational publishers.

Dr. R. Cameron Stewart was born in Montreal in 1885. He graduated in medicine at McGill University and gained high honours in his course. He took up pediatrics soon after entering practice and was appointed clinical assistant at the Royal Victoria Hospital under the late Dr. F. M. Fry. He remained a member of this department until his retirement in 1949, reaching the rank of Associate Pediatrician. Dr. Stewart belonged to the small group of physicians practicing internal medicine with a leaning towards pediatrics. His special interest was in infectious diseases, and he was on the staff of the Alexandra Hospital for Infectious Diseases for many years. Dr. Stewart was Assistant Demonstrator in Pediatrics from 1924 to 1927, and Demonstrator in Pediatrics from 1928 to 1936 and 1943 to 1949 at McGill University. He was also Assistant Physician to the Student Health Service from 1946 to 1949.