GEORGE FRANCIS STRAUB

Dr. Straub took his premedical work at the University of Wurzburg, and in 1903 he received his M.D. summa cum laude from the University of Heidelberg.

In the same year he was forced to leave Germany to escape the consequences of a quarrel provoked by a bullying older cousin, who outranked him in the Army. After stopping briefly in London, he came to New York and began his practice. There he married Adele Germains, a French-Canadian, on November 20, 1907. The marriage lasted about ten years and terminated in divorce.

Dissatisfied with New York, Dr. Straub came to Honolulu, arriving on the last day of December, 1907. He opened an office on Beretania Street and soon had a thriving practice and was very active in medical circles. As early as March, 1908, he was testifying as an expert on epilepsy in a legal case and was credited by one of the local papers as having a good knowledge of English. In August of that first year he was named one of the staff physicians at the Queen's Hospital, a privilege extended to a very few doctors at that time. In 1915 his practice was so large that he took Dr. Guy Milnor into partnership. At the end of 1920 he had secured the services of Dr. Arthur Jackson, an internist, Dr. Eric Fennel, a pathologist and Dr. Howard Clarke, an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, with Dr. Milnor handling the obstetrics. In January, 1921, the five doctors became partners in The Clinic.

In 1919, Dr. Straub married Gertrude Scott Ivers, daughter of Professor and Mrs. Marion McCarroll Scott and widow of Richard Ivers, prominent Honolulu financier. They had no children, and in 1959 Mrs. Straub died.

In 1932 his partners in The Clinic, who then numbered nine, voted to erect a new building on the corner of Hotel Street and Thomas Square. Dr. Straub was not in favor of this move, and in 1933 he resigned from the partnership just before the new building was completed. This marked the end of his active practice except during the war years (1942-1945) when the shortage of doctors brought him back to practice with the group.

For a short time when Dr. Straub first retired he and Mrs. Straub lived in Virginia. It was while he was there that a chance conversation with a piano tuner, who also made violins, aroused the doctor's interest in making violins. He became an apprentice of the piano tuner. During the years that followed he made many violins, one of which was owned and played by Albert Einstein. He also made a cello and a viola. He played the cello in an amateur string quartet and the bassoon in the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. In earlier years he spent many a musical afternoon with Queen Liliuokalani to whom he dedicated one of his violins. The doctor was also the composer of a song, "To My Dear Swan", which violinist Harry Braun, played using a violin made by Dr. Straub in a concert in Honolulu in June, 1962.

When The Clinic was first formed in 1921, Dr. Straub vetoed the suggestion that the group bear his name, fearing that with World War I just ended his German origin might prove embarrassing. It wasn't until 1955 that he allowed the name of the group to become the Straub Clinic. In 1961 he was honored when Dr. Joseph E. Strode founded the first Honolulu institution for the promotion of medical research and named it the Straub Medical Research Institute.

Dr. Straub died in Honolulu on May 21, 1966, at the age of 87.

He was a member of the Honolulu County Medical Society, the Hawaii Medical Association, the American Medical Association and the American College of Surgeons.

Always sensitive to beauty, Dr. Straub collected objets d'art among which were books, paintings and life-sized marble statues. The statues were placed on the grounds of his five-acre estate, Kolonos, in Woodlawn, where he also had many rare, imported trees.

Revised July 2008.

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