Sylvia Blake Bynum was born on November 7, 1884 in Cary, North Carolina to John Addison Blake and Mintia Hooker Blake. She married Oliver Bynum in January of 1918 in Portsmouth, Virginia. He passed away in 1929.

Blanche Wilson was born July 7, 1914 to Blanche Blake Wilson and Jeffrey T. Wilson in Portsmouth, Virginia. After her mother’s death, she and her sister Mary Virginia Wilson were raised by their aunt Sylvia Blake Bynum. She graduated from IC Norcom High School, then attended Freedman's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington D.C. The family moved from Virginia to Ann Arbor around 1936. She earned a Master’s in Public Health at the University of Michigan. Blanche Wilson married Thomas G. Bridge in August 1946 in Ann Arbor. The couple had two children, Thomas Jr. and Constance.