Harry Byers was born in Brodhagen, Logan Township on July 31st, 1896 to Andrew Byers and Caroline Graul. Byers married his wife, Violet Boyers on October 21, 1929 in Burlington, Iowa. Violet was born to John and Sarah (nee Murray) in Missouri on November 15, 1908. Together they had four children before Violet died April 15 1943 in Listowel, Ontario due to complications from childbirth. Their children were: Robert John (May 12, 1932), Jean Mildred (October 20, 1933), James Allen (January 20, 1942), and Shirley Marie (April 3, 1943).

After serving in WWI for both Canada and the United States, Harry was honorably discharged for medical reasons in 1918 due to arthritis in his left knee. After the war, Harry worked as an instructor at the Kansas Sweeney Automotive and Electrical School in the 1920's. He was then employed by the Grain Trust to go to the USSR from 1930-1931 to instruct Russians in the operation of large machinery, as part of the First Russian Five Year Plan. Violet went to Russia with him and the two kept a diary of events of their time in the country. Byers lived and worked in Grozny, Moscow, and Nikolsk (now Ussuriysk) among others. The couple returned to the United States and lived in Iowa until 1938 when they returned to Canada to settle in the Waterloo Region.

Byers lived his final years Kitchener, Ontario where he worked as a City Cab Company dispatcher and was a member of the St. Matthew's Lutheran Church. He and his wife Lorraine (nee McKay) lived at 27 Onward Ave. Byers died on July 13, 1957 at the Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital after a short illness. He was buried in a soldier's plot at Woodland Cemetery.

Caroline Byers (nee Graul) was born December 18, 1860. The daughter of William and Louise (nee Nordemann), she married Andrew Byers on August 30th, 1881 at St. John's Lutheran Church in Ellice Township, Ontario. Together they had seven children: John (1883-1956), William (August 1, 1885-August 13, 1921), Helen (1888-?), Elizabeth (September 4, 1887-?), Frederick (February [3 or 4], 1892), Catherine (November 7, 1893-?), Harry (July 4, 1896- July 13, 1957), and Susannah (November 5, 1899-?). Byers died May 2, 1942 and was buried at the Redeemer Lutheran Cemetery in Monkton, Ontario with the family surname spelled Baier.

Andrew Byers was born in [1849] to John Beyer and Anna Hauenstein.

Dame Clara Ellen Butt was a British contralto singer. She performed in operatic productions, as well as in popular concerts with her husband Kennerley Rumford. During the First World War many of her concerts were fundraisers for service charities. She died in 1936 in Oxfordshire.

Paul S. Burtness was a professor at Northern Illinois University when, along with Warren U. Ober, he began researching the events surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific. Both men are U.S. Navy Veterans of World War II. Letters were written to a number of prominent military figures who were in power either at the time of the attack or shortly after America entered into the conflict. The letters, and subsequent research, have lead to a variety of publications over a fifty year period. (From GA 261 and http://english50th.uwaterloo.ca/faculty/profiles/WOber.html).

Alida Burrett (nee Schriel) (1944-2011), women's rights and environmental activist, was born August 26, 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. At the age of six she immigrated to Canada with her parents and siblings. Alida attended Trent University for her B.A. (class of 1974) and Brock University for her B.Ed. (class of 1976). Alida met George Burrett while at Trent and the two married in 1971. Alida worked for B.F. Goodrich where she became involved in expanding the role of women in the company, and later as a teacher. Her passions were in women's rights and environmental protection and she became active as a student in the 1970s, helping to produce an early environmental magazine, and shortly after graduation as a champion of female equality in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Alida was involved in the Kitchener-Waterloo Status of Women Group in the 1980s and in 1997 she founded the Citizen's Advisory Council on Air Quality.

George Burrett is also politically and professionally active in environmental protection as well as peace, particularly in terms of nuclear disarmament. George was a member of the Waterloo Region Peace Network and performs home energy audits in the Waterloo Region.

Alida Burrett died March 25, 2011.

Born in Kansas in 1928, Virgil Burnett was an author, illustrator, and instructor whose work has been widely published in North America and Europe. He received his undergraduate education at Columbia University in New York, where he studied with Edward Melcarth, a Social Realist painter. In 1950, he was drafted, trained as a combat engineer, and sent to Europe where he served for two years in a propaganda company as an artist-illustrator. After his military service, he attended graduate school at Berkeley, taking a master's degree in Art History. When a Fulbright scholarship took Burnett to Paris in 1956, he encountered other expat artists including David Hill, whom he remained close friends with until Hill's death in 1977. Burnett also met Maurice Darantiere, a French publisher who made him aware of the expressive possibilities of the book arts. By 1960, he was working primarily as an illustrator. In the 1970s, he began as a professor in the Fine Arts department at the University of Waterloo. Burnett died in 2012

Cornelius Franklin Burk was an engineer and civil servant. Born in Chicago, Cornelius Franklin Burk came to Canada in 1920 and was granted Canadian citizenship in 1934. He obtained a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the University of Toronto before working as a draftsman and test engineer at Sheldon's Ltd. in Galt in 1929. He later spent several years working in Talara, Peru as an employee of International Petrolium Ltd. Burk served as the Director of development at the University of Waterloo from 1959 to 1961 before becoming secretary-manager of the Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. He succeeded Clifford N. Hall in the role, who had held the position from it's creation in 1952 until 1961.

Fred C. Burden was born September 3, 1863 in Michigan. He died October 8, 1949 in Los Angeles, California.

Budds Department Store was a family-owned business that first opened in Kitchener, Ontario in 1926. Four brothers from Saint John, New Brunswick, Lou, Jack, Mort, and Nat Budd purchased the Davis Economical Store at 227 King St. W. in Downtown Kitchener, reopening the doors shortly after as Budds Department Store. In 1931 the brothers opened a second location in Guelph. In 1933 the Kitchener store moved to a larger location to accommodate their growing business, and in 1937 a third location opened in Simcoe, turning their family business into a chain. Nat Budd's sons Howie and Stan got involved in the business in the 1960s, and later Howie’s son Jeff joined the business, taking over operations management and advertising in 1997. In 2015 the Budd family announced that all three locations would be shutting down due to Howie and Stan's wish to retire. In early January 2016 the Kitchener and Guelph locations closed their doors, and the Simcoe location followed within a month. Budds Department Store was just shy of its 90th anniversary.

J. Fraser Bryce was born in Dundas, Ontario in 1852. He operated as a Toronto-based photographer between 1877 and 1909, working and travelling in the United States for stretches during this period.

Hattie A. Bruce was born in 1857 in or near Guelph, Ontario to George A. Bruce and Margaret Keith. She lived in Kitchener, Ontario, and supported herself independently, remaining unmarried until her death in 1930.

Hannah Maria Cook was born January 1, 1837 in Waterloo Township, now in the Region Of Waterloo, Ontario, to James and Elizabeth Cook. She married John A. Brubacher (1844-1837) on October 15, 1872. Hannah Brubacher died October 13, 1921.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (nee Moulton-Barrett) was a British poet and activist of the Victorian period. Known for her prolific output, she was one of the leading poets of her time and was a contender for Poet Laureate. She was also a campaigner for the abolition of slavery and reform in child labour laws.

Thomas Austen Brown was the son of a drawing-master. He was a student of the Royal Scottish Academy School, and soon caught the attention of the critics at the exhibitions. His paintings, The Strawberry Harvest (1884), 'Love Lightens Toil' (1885), 'Hark! The Cuckoo' (1886) and 'Playmates' (R.A 1886) were scenes from country life, and were noted for their vibrant colours and sentimentality. As a result of his work at Cambuskenneth, Brown became closely associated with the Glasgow movement, working in both oil and watercolour. As a result, he also shared their early success in London and on the Continent. Brown later lived in the north of France, where he continued to paint in watercolour, and completed much of his later work. Brown was a successful artist, who won several first-class medals at print exhibitions in Munich, Dresden, Barcelona and Budapest (1861-1911).

Dr. Steven Brown was the nephew of Ross Dixon.

The Y.M.C.A. chorus of which R. J. Brown was a member, was founded in the mid-1930s by Don McLaren. It was formed with the support of the Y.M.C.A. quartette which had been established some years earlier. The chorus was disbanded during World War II when many of the chorus members served in the armed forces. Moreover, in 1941 Don McLaren moved overseas to become a representative of the Y. M.C.A. in England.

The first year of this chorus was 1935 and as it started to grow and become more proficient, rehearsals came to be held twice a week instead of once a week. Later on a female section was added to the chorus. This included five girls and a female pianist, Miss Dorothy Schweitzer, who replaced the previous pianist, Freddie Oliver, who had moved to Toronto. The Y.M.C.A. Chorus broadcast over C.F.R.B., Toronto in both 1938 and 1939 for J. M. Schneider Ltd. The broadcasts were carried out from the Y.M.C.A. gymnasium on the corner of Queen and Weber Street in Kitchener.

Mayor of Kitchener, Ontario, 1946-1947.

Irene Brown was born Irene Coombs on Feb. 10, 1920 in Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. Her youth was spent travelling with her theatrical parents. She attended Longley Hall School and after the death of her mother moved to Blackpool with her father and step-mother. At the onset of WWII she began nursing training at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport and at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. She worked in the Civil Nursing Reserve and was assigned to the Kirkham Emergency Hospital. She met and married Edward Brown and had three children. Irene and Edward Brown and their children emigrated to Canada in 1956.

Matt Broman was born February 2, 1895 in Sweden. He became a landscape architect, working in and around Hamilton, Ontario. In the late 1930's, he was Superintendent of Arboriculture at the Niagara Parks Commission and was working at that time with T.B. McQuesten on designing the Royal Botanical Gardens. Matt Broman Park in Hamilton is named in his honour. He died in 1989.

Leonard Walter Brockington was born in Cardiff, Wales, April 6, 1888 and died in Toronto on Deptember 15, 1966. He had a long and multifaceted career, perhaps best known as the first Chairman of the CBC from 1936-1939. He served as Special Assistant to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King from 1939-1942.
See: Babe, Robert E., "Leonard Walter Brockington" (2008) in The Canadian Encyclopedia of Biography: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/leonard-walter-brockington

Ellen Roselia "Rosy" Cook was born June 5, 1849 in Waterloo Township, now in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, to James and Elizabeth Cook. She married Ephraim K. Bricker (1848-1925) on October 15, 1868. Rosie Bricker died January 1, 1929 in Kitchener, Ontario.