Frederick Philip Grove arrived in Manitoba in September 1912. Although he kept his prior life very much a secret, he was born in 1879 as Felix Paul Greve in Radomno, a small Prussian town on the post-World War I German-Polish border. Greve grew up in Hamburg where he graduated from the famous humanistic Gymnasium Johanneum in 1898 and then studied classical philology at Bonn University. In late July 1909, he faked his suicide and immigrated to North America, taking second class passage on the White Star Liner "Megantic" from Liverpool to Montreal. The three years spent in the United States are described in ASA, 1927, except that Grove fails to mention the year he operated a small farm in Sparta, Kentucky, with Else Freytag-Loringhoven who had joined him in Pittsburgh in 1910. In Canada, he was a teacher/principal in a variety of rural schools, including Rapid City where he lived for seven years before moving to Ottawa in 1929. There, he joined Graphic Publishers until 1931, when he settled on an estate in Simcoe, Ontario. Grove wrote and his wife Catherine Wiens opened a Froebel Kindergarten. Grove suffered a crippling stroke in 1944 and although he continued to write, his health deteriorated. He died on August 19, 1948.

During his Manitoba years (1919-1929), Grove published twelve books, including Over Prairie Trails (1922), The Turn of the Year (1923), Settlers of the Marsh (1925), A Search for America (ASA, 1927, eEd. 2000), Our Daily Bread (1928) and It Needs to be Said (1929). He also wrote many short stories, reviews, essays and articles, and a very large number of poems (publ. 1993, eEd. 2007). In Ontario, several more books were published, starting with The Yoke of Life (1930). Fruits of the Earth (1933), Master of the Mill (1944), and his official autobiography In Search of Myself (ISM, 1946, eEd. 2007) followed. His "ant-book", the Swiftian satire Consider Her Ways (1947), was published as a fragment. Many more unfinished typescripts are among his papers. Grove was endebted to Stefan George's "Mache" or way of crafting for all his poetry, and to Flaubert's symbolic realism for his prose works. He is a key figure in Canadian literary history and is known for his vivid descriptions of life on the prairies which often tended to be dark and difficult.

Frederick Philip Grove is one of the most important and debatable novelists in Canadian literature. An intriguing aspect of this man is the mystery surrounding his origins. Grove kept secret his life prior to his arrival in Winnipeg, Manitoba in December 1912. Where he came from, who he was, what he did and why he left may never be absolutely known. However, a number of scholars have come to believe that Grove’s original name was Felix Paul Greve.1 Many aspects of this man’s life tie in with Grove’s, many do not. In accordance with increasing academic support in favor of Paul Greve and Frederick Philip Grove being the same individual, this thesis has been accepted in the present context.

In all likelihood, Frederick Philip Grove was born February 14, 1879 at Radomno, on the Polish-Prussian border. He studied at Bonn University in 1898 and sometime between 1909 and 1912 immigrated to North America. An important element of Grove’s life was his role as an educator. He spent many years teaching in various rural communities of Southern Manitoba. From January to June 1913 he taught in the town of Haskett and during the following summer was appointed principal of the Intermediate School in Winkler, where he remained until July 1915. Tena (Catherine) Wiens was a fellow teacher and became Grove’s close friend and confidante. On August 2, 1914 they were married, the bride aged 22, the groom giving his age as 41.

In the next seven years Grove taught in six different schools, as well as pursuing his own academic interests. In September 1915 he enrolled at the University of Manitoba as an extramural student, majoring in French and English. During this time, his daughter Phyllis May was born. Grove did not receive his Bachelor of Arts degree until 1922.
In the summer of 1922 Grove became principal of the high school in Rapid City, Manitoba, and although he suffered from several long-term illnesses, he taught there until 1924.
Two of Grove’s life-long associates were Arthur Leonard Phelps and Watson Kirkconnell, both of whom he first met in March 1923 at a teacher’s convention in Winnipeg. Kirkconnell was his “private library service”, while Phelps provided connections with many influential literary people such as W. A. Deacon, then literary editor of the Toronto Saturday Night, Graham Spry, later executive president of the Canadian Clubs, and Lorne Pierce, editor of Ryerson Press.

Between 1919 and 1929 Grove published twelve books including Over Prairie Trails (1922), The Turn of The Year (1923), Settlers of the Marsh (1925), A Search for America (1927), Our Daily Bread (1928) and It Needs to Be Said (1929). During this same period he also wrote several stories, reviews and articles, and a collection of poems dedicated to his daughter, Phyllis May, who died suddenly on July 20, 1927 at the age of twelve. These poems are highly emotional and portray the intense sorrow suffered by the Groves at this time.
In 1928 Grove conducted two lecture tours sponsored by the Canadian Clubs, one in Ontario (February to April) and the other in the Western provinces (September and November). Grove was a gifted lecturer, not only on literary subjects, but also on education, art, culture, farming, democracy and science. His wide-ranging interests and encyclopedic knowledge are especially evident in the collection of unpublished articles and addresses. Grove became quite popular and his works were well received by the Canadian public.
In September of 1929, just prior to the Depression, Grove left Rapid City, Manitoba and in December moved to Ottawa to join Graphic Publishers. However, due to personal disputes, he left the company in March of 1931 and used the money he had saved from this venture to buy a forty-acre farm in Simcoe, Ontario. Graphic Publishers declared bankruptcy on August 16, 1932. Before the Groves left Ottawa, their son, Arthur Leonard (named after Arthur Phelps), was born August 14, 1931.

While working hard at renovating their large, white frame farm house, the Groves opened the Froebel Kindergarten, whose pupils were members of the Simcoe English Club. Enrollment increased so that by 1935 it included the “first form” (for children age six or seven), plus extra courses in oral French, nature study, home geography, and art. Meanwhile, Grove farmed his land and the family was basically self-sufficient. Grove was realizing his dream of being a gentleman farmer and literary man. However in 1939, because of poor health, he was forced to give up farming. As the Depression persisted, fewer and fewer parents could afford the expense of private school. Accordingly, the school became less selective and began accepting children with serious learning problems. Mrs. Grove was particularly gifted in working with slow learners, and this ability provided her with an income for many years.

But Grove’s health was failing. In April 1944 he suffered a crippling stroke that totally paralyzed his right side. However, his mind remained clear and he continued his reading and writing by dictation. Early in 1944 Pelham Edgar established a fund for the “Canadian Writers Foundation Inc.” and in March Grove was made one of its first three beneficiaries. He received a grant of $100 per month which continued until his death.

The last few years of his life were painful and difficult for Grove; nonetheless he continued to write. In March 1944 he published The Master of the Mill, and in 1946 published his autobiography, In Search of Myself, destined to win the 1947 Governor-General’s award for non-fiction. He also managed to complete the final draft of Consider Her Ways before his final seizure in May 1946.

For most of Grove’s last two years, having lost his speech, his needs were served not only by his wife but by his teenage son, Leonard. After his death on August 19, 1948, Grove’s body was buried beside his daughter Phyllis May, in Rapid City, Manitoba.
Frederick Philip Grove is a key figure in the history of Canadian literature. His outstanding literary achievements and contributions as a writer, teacher, critic, and philosopher are becoming increasingly recognized and appreciated. Much has been written of this man and much more will be written in the years to come because of the power of his writings, their enduring popularity, and because of his own life and personality.

Donald E. Guard was a volunteer who helped clean up after the 1950 Red River Flood waters began to recede.

Kristjana Gunnars was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1948 and immigrated to Canada in 1969. She has one son, Eyvindur Kang, born in 1971. In 1973, she received a B.A. from Oregon State University, and an M.A. from the University of Regina in 1978. Since 1981, Gunnars has worked as a freelance creative writer, holding positions as Writer-In-Residence at the Regina Public Library (1988-1989) and the University of Alberta (1989-1990), and using her knowledge of writing to teach courses at Okanagan College (1990-1991) and the University of Alberta, where she has been an Associate Professor of English since 1991. In addition, Gunnars has written several well-received books of poetry, including Settlement Poems, I and II (1980, 1981), One-Eyed Moon Maps (1981), Wake-Pick Poems, (1982), The Night Workers of Ragnarok (1985), Carnival of Longing (1989), and Exiles Among Us (1996). She is also the author of two books of short fiction, The Axe's Edge (1983) and The Guest House (1992). In addition, she has authored three novels: The Prowler (1989), which won the McNally Robinson Award for Manitoba Book of the Year, The Substance of Forgetting (1992), and The Rose Garden (1996). Her poetic prose work, Zero Hour (1991), was nominated for a Governor General's Award. Works that she edited include Unexpected Fictions: New Icelandic Canadian Writing (1985) and Crossing the River: Essays in Honour of Margaret Laurence (1988). Her writing strongly reveals her Icelandic background, as well as her understanding of the intricacies and difficulties of the human condition.

Norman Macleod Hall was born February 8, 1886 in Cornwall, Ontario. He obtained a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University. He first worked for the Grand Trunk Railway in Montreal and on the line from Winnipeg to Edmonton. After that he worked with the Western Canada Power Company in British Columbia constructing the hydroelectric plant at Slave Falls. In 1915, he joined the Royal Engineers, serving in France. In 1919, he was wounded by a sniper at Amiens, and mistakenly reported dead for two weeks. He was promoted to Major and discharged. In September that year, he came to the University of Manitoba as professor of mechanical engineering. He was named Professor Emeritus after retirement and died in 1974.

James B. Hartman has a Ph.D. in Philosophy. He is an Associate Professor in Extended Education at the University of Manitoba. He has published articles for the Manitoba Historical Society on the history of music, theatre and church organs in early-Winnipeg and Manitoba. He has also wrote articles for the Journal of the International Society for Organ History and Preservation. In 1997, the University of Manitoba Press published his book, The Organ in Manitoba: A History of the Instruments, the Builders and the Players. He donated his photograph collection depicting various church organs in Manitoba Churches to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 2008.

Betty Havens was born October 9, 1936. She obtained a B.A. from Milwaukee-Downer College in 1958 and an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin in 1965. From 1972 to 1982, she served in the position of Research Director with Manitoba Health. She initiated the Manitoba Longitudinal Study of Aging in 1971 that is still being used by researchers today. From 1982 until 1994, Havens acted as Provincial Gerontologist for Manitoba Health. From 1990 until 1994, she was Assistant Deputy Minister for Manitoba Health. In 1992, Havens was Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. From 1992 until her death in 2005, Havens was Research Associate for the Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation, University of Manitoba. Concurrently, she was Professional Associate, Centre on Aging. In 1994, Havens became Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, a position she held until her death in 2005. Havens wrote numerous articles throughout her career and was the recipient of several awards and distinctions including the YWCA Professional Woman of the Year. In 1994, she received a D.Litt. from the University of Waterloo. In 1997, she was made a senior scholar at the University of Manitoba and in 2005 she was the recipient of the Order of Canada. Havens died March 1, 2005.

Kenneth Hayes is an architectural historian and a curator and critic of contemporary art. His work has appeared in such publications as Azure, Alphabet City, and Parachute. In 2008 he published a book titled Milk and Melancholy.

Naomi Hersom was born and raised in Winnipeg, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, and began her teaching career in Winnipeg. In 1989, at the time of the convocation, she was president of Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was awarded an honourary degree from the University of Manitoba for her contributions in the profession of teaching. She delivered a speech at the 110th Convocation ceremonies in 1989 entitled "The Paradox and the Privilege of Being a Professional."

Ella Cora Hind, an agricultural writer and editor for the Manitoba Free Press, was known as an authority on agriculture, livestock, and wheat yields. Her opinion influenced prices on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and western grain crops for several years. She was one of the first female writers and editors of the Manitoba Free Press. She was also a champion of women's suffrage and a strong supporter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Political Equality League.

Simma Holt (née Milner) was born March 27, 1922 in Vegreville, Alberta. She attended the University of Manitoba from 1941-1944, graduating with majors in English and Psychology.
During her time at the University, she was the first female managing editor of the student newspaper The Manitoban and was also a university reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Upon graduation in 1944, she began working as a teletype operator and reporter for the Canadian Press in Calgary. In the autumn of 1944, at age twenty-two, she began her thirty-year journalism career with the Vancouver Sun.

She married Leon Holt, a freelance photographer and later high school teacher in 1949. They were married for thirty-seven years, until his death in 1985.

In 1974, Simma Holt left the Vancouver Sun to successfully run as the Liberal member of Parliament for Vancouver-Kingsway. Holt was the first Jewish woman in Canadian history to be elected to Parliament. She sat for one term losing her seat in 1979. During her time in Parliament, she was Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Justice and a member of its subcommittee on the Penitentiary System. She was also a member of several Standing Committees: Broadcasting, Films and Assistance to the Arts; Privileges and Elections; Labour, Manpower and Immigration; National Resources and Public Works; Procedure and Organization; Transport and Communications; Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs; and Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.

In 1976, while still an MP, she became an occasional columnist for the Toronto Sun. Holt became a columnist for Ottawa Sun and Vancouver Business. She also was a freelance writer for Reader's Digest, Maclean’s, Fairlady in South Africa, Chatelaine and other magazines. Holt wrote four books: Terror in the Name of God: The Story of the Sons of Freedom (1965), Sex and the Teen Age Revolution (1967), The Devil's Butler (1971), The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker (1983), and Memoirs of a Loose Cannon (2008).

From 1981 to 1985, Holt was a member of the National Parole Board. She also acted as a researcher and writer in the presidential campaign of George Bush from 1987 to 1988, although later quit as she did not agree with Republican politics.

Holt was the recipient of numerous awards. In 1964 she was named Women of the Year for Canada in Arts and Letters for her book Terror in the Name of God. She was awarded, in 1969, the Jubilee Award by the University of Manitoba Alumni Association in recognition of her “distinguished achievement” in the 25 years since her graduation. The following year she won the Bowater Award of Merit in the sociological division for her series of articles on changing morality and sociological upheaval of teenagers. In 1985, she was a nominee for the Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction award. She was inducted into the Canadian Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1996 and that same year she also was appointed a member of the Order of Canada. Her Order of Canada citation included the recognition that “she has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to assisting those suffering from injustice, persecution and poverty. Her perceptive and impassioned writings have contributed to positive social change by raising public awareness of injustices in society.” In 2002, she received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal for her contribution to public life.

Simma Holt passed away in Burnaby, BC on January 23, 2015.

Samuel Hooper was born in 1851 in Devon, England and immigrated to Canada in 1869 where he trained in stone carving and monument work. In 1881, Hooper migrated to Winnipeg and was employed as a monument designer and builder. His works include the Red River Rebellion monument and the Seven Oaks Rebellion monument. Hooper subsequently moved back to England to study architecture and returned to Winnipeg around 1897. He was the architect of the Exchange Building, the Agricultural College, and the Normal School. Hooper was appointed Provincial Architect in 1904. Hooper died in 1911 in London, England but was buried in Winnipeg.

Charles M. Hovey was born in 1913. Hovey attended Kelvin Collegiate Institute from 1928 to 1931. During his undergraduate years at the University of Manitoba, Hovey worked on designing and constructing many different instruments and apparatus for the engineering faculty including a complete photo-elastic polariscope. A University of Manitoba graduate and subsequent professor of civil engineering, Hovey began his teaching career in 1945. Hovey was appointed in 1947 to Forest Products Engineer working as a civil servant for the Dominion department of mines and resources in Vancouver. In 1952, he received a Master of Science degree in Engineering. One of Hovey's more significant engineering projects was building a device which helped polio patients exercise while in an iron lung. He also worked for the National Research Council on the behavior of aircraft panels in compression. In 1956, Hovey was contracted with Bristol Aircraft (Western) Limited to continue this research. He was appointed in 1958 as a lecturer for the University of Manitoba Faculty of Dentistry to occasionally speak on dentistry and metallurgy while still employed at Bristol Aircraft.

Olive Irvine was born in Holland, Manitoba on June 21, 1895. She began her career as a teacher at Fannystelle and later taught at Cypress River, Treherne and Winnipeg. During the First World War, she ran the Cypress River Red Cross Society and, during the Second World War, she was an active Red Cross member and Chairman of the Rooms Registry. Irvine was a member of both the provincial and federal Progressive Conservative Party. In 1959, she became the Manitoba representative on the National Capital Commission. A year later she became the first woman appointed to the Senate by the Diefenbaker government and the first woman senator from the Prairies. In 1963, she represented Canada as a delegate to the United Nations. Irvine served on the Senate until her death in 1969. Her husband was James C. Irvine of Winnipeg.

Dr. Simon Jauvoish was a Private in the 196th Western Canadian Universities Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. In 1917, he was stationed in Seaford, Sussex, England. The predominant themes in his writing reflect his experiences of the First World War. Jauvoish completed his first year as a student of medicine at the University of Manitoba in the 1919-1920 school year. The addresses on his typescripts indicate that he resided both in La Riviere and Winnipeg, Manitoba. He became a physician and surgeon and was practicing up to the 1950s.

Takeo Kawata was a Japanese-Canadian interned by the Canadian government in 1942 under the War Measures Act following the attack on Pearl Harbor during the Second World War.

T. Herman Keahey is a renowned music performer and musicologist. He taught at the University of Manitoba School of Music, beginning in the 1980s and continuing until 2005. He became the Director of the School of Music in 1983. Keahey studied music at Yale University and the University of Texas. His primary interests are in the field of sacred music (the late-15th century) and the oboe concerto of the late-18th century. He was an editor and contributor to the collection of sacred music publications Opera Omnia Pierre de La Rue (1989) and Johannes Prioris Opera Omnia (1982). He also edited numerous works written for the oboe in the 18th and early-19th centuries and is the author of many articles published for the Grove Dictionary of Music.

Michael Stewart Read Kinnear taught in the University of Manitoba's History department for almost 50 years. Dr. Kinnear graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a B.A. in history in 1960. He completed an M.A. in history at the University of Oregon in 1961 and a Ph.D. in Politics at Oxford University in 1965. Dr. Kinnear became a professor of history at the University of Manitoba in 1965 and retired in 2014.

In 1996 and 1997, Dr. Kinnear was a consultant for Election Canada and in 2001 and 2002 he was a Legislation Consultant for a Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Kinnear held many academic and research positions during his years at the University of Manitoba. In 1986-1987 and 1993-1994, he was a Bye Fellow at Robinson College at Cambridge University. In 1993, he was a Visiting Fellow at Australian National University. Between 1990 and 1996, he was a Manitoba Member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. He is an author of numerous publications on British, Canadian, and American elections, including the books The British Voter: An Atlas and Survey since 1885 (1981), The Fall of Lloyd George: The Political Crisis of 1922 (1974), A History of the Vote in Canada (1997, co-authored with Pierre Dufour), and about 80 articles on Canadian Elections. Dr. Kinnear is currently working on a long-term study of U.S. Presidential Elections since 1856 and on roll-call votes in the U.S. Congress on trade related issues between 1914 and 2000.

Klaus K. Klostermaier, F.R.S.C., is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Manitoba. He was born in Munich, Germany and joined the University of Manitoba in 1970. Dr. Klostermaier received his doctorate in Ancient Indian History and Culture in 1969 at the University of Bombay. During his ten years living in India, he studied numerous sacred texts in their original languages (Sanskrit, Hindi, Pali, Latin, Classical Greek, German, Italian, French). Dr. Klostermaier was the founder and first director of the Asian Studies department (1990-1995). He also was Head of the Religion Department between 1986 and 1997. Dr. Klostermaier has published many books dealing with religions and philosophies of India and the relationship between science and religion including Nature of Nature: Explorations in Science, Philosophy, and Religion (2004), Hindu Writing (2000), Hinduism: a Short History (2000), and Buddhism: a Short Introduction (1999). He has taught courses such as "Intro to World Religions", "Religions of Indian Origin", and "Indian Religious Art and Architecture."

Raymond Knister was born in Essex County, Ontario in 1900. Knister devoted his life to writing. However, before fully establishing his name in the literary world, he met with an unfortunate and untimely death at Stoney Point, on Lake Saint Clair, in a drowning accident in 1932. He was the author of a novel entitled White Narcissus (1929) and of a prize novel My Star Predominant, which was published posthumously in 1934. He also edited a volume of short stories in 1928 and a volume of his collected poems with a memoir by Dorothy Livesay, also published posthumously in 1949.

Henry Kreisel was born in Vienna, Austria in 1922. He left for England in 1938 during the Nazi annexation of his country. In 1940, Kreisel was among the many Jews and alleged Nazi sympathizers sent from Britain to internment camps in New Brunswick and elsewhere in Canada. When released a year later, he studied English Literature at the University of Toronto where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1946 and a Master of Arts degree in 1947. Kreisel then joined the University of Alberta where he completed a Doctorate in 1954, became a full professor of English in 1959, and eventually became head of the Department of English in 1961. In 1970, Kreisel was named Vice-President (Academic) of the University of Alberta. Kreisel wrote two novels, The Rich Man (1948) and The Betrayal (1964). He also published a collection of short stories, The Almost Meeting (1981), and has written many essays and articles on immigration, literature, and culture. The University of Alberta awarded him the A.C. Rutherford Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1986 and the Government of Alberta awarded him the Sir Frederick Haultain Prize for significant contributions to the Fine Arts.

General Charles Gordon Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond was born in Scotland in 1764. In 1787, he was commissioned in the 35th Regiment as a captain. The Regiment traveled to the West Indies to fight the French Revolutionary government in 1794. He became a Colonel in 1795 and was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1805. On December 29, 1806, Lennox inherited the title of Richmond from his uncle, the 3rd Duke. Between 1807 and 1813, the 4th Duke of Richmond served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and became familiar with the future Duke of Wellington. In 1815, Lennox and his Regiment witnessed at least half of the Battle of Waterloo. Lennox was appointed Governor-General of Upper Canada in May 1818. He died in Upper Canada in August 1819.

Marion Jean Lewis was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1925. In 1943, she graduated from Gordon Bell High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba and went on to train as a medical technician at Winnipeg General Hospital. In 1944, she and Dr. Bruce Chown opened the Rh Laboratory in Winnipeg to study and eradicate Rh disease. While Dr. Chown retired in 1977, Lewis continued on in the field of blood group gene mapping and eventually branched out into the field of genetics. She and her colleagues at the Rh Laboratory, including Hiroko Kaita, became internationally renowned for their work.

Lewis also taught at the University of Manitoba. Even though she only possessed a Bachelor of Arts degree, her experience and expertise allowed her to rise through the ranks. From 1973 to 1977, Lewis was Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. In 1977, she was promoted to Associate Professor. In 1984, she was promoted to full Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and two years later became a Professor in the Department of Human Genetics. Over the years, she authored, or co-authored, over 100 articles.

Throughout her career, Lewis has been given a number of awards and honours. In 1971, she was awarded the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) and in 1986, the Teddy Award for Research from the Children's Hospital in Winnipeg. In 1986, she received an honourary D.Sc from the University of Winnipeg and in 1993 was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science). In 1995, she was given the Emily Cooley Memorial Award by the AABB and, in 1996, was named Professor Emeritus by the University of Manitoba.

Marion Lewis was a former diploma student in Home Economics at the University of Manitoba from 1924 to 1926.

Florence Randal Livesay was born in 1874. She was a poet and a novelist. She was married to J.F.B. Livesay, general manager of the Canadian Press. Shortly after their daughter Dorothy's birth, the family moved from Winnipeg to Toronto. Dorothy Livesay became a famous Canadian poet. Both Florence Randal Livesay and her husband were journalists for The Winnipeg Tribune. Florence Randal Livesay was known for her translations of verse from Ukrainian to English. She died in 1953.

Jennifer Stacey Harcourt Brown was born in Providence, Rhode Island on December 30, 1940. She obtained an A.B. (Hons) in Ancient & Medieval Culture from Brown University in 1962. She received an A.M. in Classical Archaeology from Harvard University the following year. In 1976 she completed her Ph.D in Cultural/Social Anthropology at University of Chicago. Brown taught at Colby College in Waterville, Maine from 1966-1969. She taught at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb intermittently from 1969-1982 and also on a sessional basis at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and Indiana University. She was editor for the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University from 1975-1982. She came to the University of Winnipeg as an Associate Professor in History in 1983. She was made a full professor in 1988. In 1997 she became the Director of the Centre for Rupert's Land Studies. In 2004 she became Canada Research Chair for Aboriginal Peoples and Histories.
Dr. Brown has published extensively in fur trade and Aboriginal history. Her book Strangers in Blood, published by University of British Columbia Press, received Honorable Mention for the Canadian Historical Association's Sir John A. Macdonald Prize. In 2002 she received a British Academy Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology and Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Academy II (Social Sciences) in 2008. For a more in-depth account of her career consult Brown's vitae in Box 1 Fd. 1 of both of the first two accessions. Dr. Brown retired in 2011.

Lillian May Forrester was born in 1880 to Samantha Rixon and John MacFarlane Forrester in Melrose, a tiny farming community in Tyendinaga Township, Hastings County, Ontario, near Belleville. The family moved to southern Manitoba in 1881, settling on a farm in the Aux Marais district, near the town of Emerson and the U.S. border. She served for a while as a school teacher, and in 1905 graduated from the Winnipeg General Hospital School of Nursing (now the School of Nursing of the University of Manitoba). She was an active member of King Memorial United Church for many years and was a life member and past president of the Women's Missionary Society. Mrs. Hamilton was also a past president of the Medical Faculty Women's Club, University of Manitoba, and was a member of the Women's Musical Club.
In 1906, she married Dr. Thomas Glendenning (T.G.) Hamilton in Elmwood. In 1909, their daughter Margaret Lillian was born; in 1911, their son Glen Forrester; and in 1915, their twin sons Arthur Lamont and James Drummond. The loss of Arthur in 1919 to the influenza epidemic encouraged the Hamiltons to engage with questions of life after death, and eventually establish the well-known Hamilton experiments in psychic phenomena, including the holding and recording of séances at their home, and other psychical research. Starting in the 1920s, Lillian not only helped organize and participated in the séances, but also carried out a large part of the secretarial work of researching, filing and analyzing the records; she also helped to prepare many of Dr. Hamilton's papers and articles. After T.G. Hamilton’s death in 1935, she carried on the séances and psychical research. From 1939-1940, she conducted two series of experiments with Hugh Reed, including several previous members of the Hamilton group, notably the medium Mary Marshall (aka “Dawn”). Lillian Hamilton brought the Hamilton investigations to a close in 1944, by which time the group had largely dispersed.
With her youngest son James D. Hamilton, Lillian completed the manuscript about the T.G. Hamilton research which was published as Intention and Survival in 1942. Until Lillian's health began to fail in 1955, she continued study of psychic matters and undertook the indexing and care of the Hamilton records. In the early 1950s, she and her daughter Margaret Hamilton Bach began collaborating on the work that was eventually published by Margaret as Is Survival A Fact? in 1969. Lillian died on 18 September 1956 in Concordia Hospital in Winnipeg.

Doreen Bobbit donated an item to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 2002. The item, a graduation bracelet, belonged to Kathleen Shafer who graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Science in 1936. The bracelet was gifted to Schafer by her male classmates from the faculty of science in 1936. Apparently, there were so few female science graduates at the time that the male graduates gifted all the women who graduated with a bracelet. The bracelet is engraved with “Grad 36” and “K.S” and features a question mark on a green background underneath the words “University of Manitoba Science”.

Colleen Campbell donated University of Manitoba memorabilia to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 2003. The publications in this collection belonged to Colleen Campbell, who graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor’s in Industrial Design.

Connie Pilgrim donated material to the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections in 2002. The items in this collection belonged to Pilgrim, who graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1933.

Arthur Tyrell "Art" Puttee was an ice hockey goaltender and an engineering student at the University of Manitoba. He was born 14 October 1904 in Winnipeg, and his father was the noted Canadian politician and newspaper editor Arthur W. Putnee.

Art Puttee played in goal for the University of Manitoba Senior Varsity hockey team from the 1927-28 season through to his graduation after the 1930-31 season. During his first season, the team won the Allan Cup at the 1928 Canadian senior men's hockey championship, shutting out the Montreal Victorias 1-0.

Three years later, Puttee and the team known as the "University of Manitoba Grads" went on a 25-game tour of Europe that included games in London, Berlin, Prague, St. Moritz, Hamburg, and Paris. The tour involved representing Canada at the 1931 World Championships in Krynica, Poland. The team won the world title in a 2-0 final game against the Unites States (represented by the Boston Hockey Club) in the 21st game of the tour, and was undefeated in all of those 21 games. Additionally, Puttee had a six-game shutout during the world championship tournament. Puttee had to return to Winnipeg to write final exams during the final games of the tour, at which time Sam McCallum took over in net for the team.

Puttee's goaltending skill during the European tour atracted offers from European hockey clubs. He played for the Swiss club Grasshoppers Zürich in 1931-32, together with another Canadian player, Blake Watson. Puttee played in Zürich for another two years in addition to representing various Zürich city teams. He was also lent to Austrian team Wiener EV when they toured England in 1932. Aside from playing games, Puttee was sometimes hired to officiate international games between club teams and he refereed several games during the 1933 World Cup tournament in Prague.

Arthur Putnee worked as a civil engineer for the City of Winnipeg in the later years of his life, and he and his wife Eleanor had two children, Arthur Robert and Mary Eleanor. Puttee passed away in Winnipeg at the age of 62 on 18 October 1966. In 2004 two of the teams Puttee played for were inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame - the 1928 Allan Cup winners and the 1931 World Champions.