JOSEPH EMERSON STRODE

Joseph Emerson Strode was born in Independence, Missouri, on March 6, 1891, the son of Walter Sterling and Jodie Ellen (Dillingham) Strode. He attended normal school in Warrensburg, Missouri, for two years and then entered Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, from which he received his M.D. in 1915. A year's internship at Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, followed. A classmate from Hawaii, Dr. J.M. Kuhns, persuaded Dr. Strode to come to Hawaii. Arriving in Honolulu in June, 1916, he began an internship at the Queen's Hospital, which lasted until September, 1917.

At this point World War I intervened, and Dr. Strode was commissioned a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and sent to the Army Medical School in Washington, D.C., from which he graduated with honors in February, 1918. He was then stationed at Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, remaining there for 16 months.

Dr. Strode married Miss Pauline Elizabeth Schaefer of Honolulu at Petersburg, Virginia, on December 8, 1917. They had one daughter, Evelyn (Mrs. Ralph Van Orsdel), and a son, Walter Sterling, now a urologist with the Straub Clinic.

Discharged from the Army, Dr. Strode returned to Honolulu in August, 1919, and went into private practice. For a short time he was also a government physician for the Koolaupoko district of Oahu. On January 1, 1922, he joined the Straub Clinic, then known simply as The Clinic. From 1947 to 1963 he was chief of surgery at Queen's Hospital and from 1957 to 1963 he was chief of staff. Dr. Strode was on the staff of every hospital in Honolulu, a consultant in surgery to the U.S. Public Health Service, and a member of the teaching staff at Tripler Army Hospital.

On December 7, 1941, Dr. Strode had joined other surgeons of the city at Mabel Smyth auditorium to hear a lecture by the eminent Dr. John J. Moorhead of Postgraduate Hospital in New York City. The lecture had just begun when the attack on Pearl Harbor was announced and all available doctors were asked to report to Tripler Hospital. Dr. Strode took Dr. Moorhead in his car, and they, together with many other civilian doctors, went immediately to Tripler where they found a great many severely wounded, dying, and dead. Dr. Strode and Dr. Moorhead operated continuously from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. under very trying conditions. For the next ten days they returned to Tripler to follow their cases. Subsequently, Dr. Strode served with the Office of Civilian Defense as chief of staff at a military hospital established in what had been a Catholic girls' school After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he received a War Department citation "for exceptional performance of arduous duties in the care of military personnel who were injured during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 7 December, 1941".

Active in a great many professional organizations, Dr. Strode in 1948 was the first doctor in Hawaii to be elected to the very selective American Surgical Association, and for a number of years was the only physician in Hawaii so honored. He was founder and president of the Honolulu General Surgical Society, president of the Hawaii chapter of the College of Surgeons, vice-president of the Pan-Pacific Surgical Association for a three year term beginning in 1957, which was followed in 1960 by a three year term as president. In 1923 and again in 1931 Dr. Strode was president of the Hawaii Medical Association. The August 7, 1961, issue of "Modern Medicine" carried his picture on the cover and an accompanying story. In 1968 he was made a senior member of the exclusive Pacific Coast Surgical Association, and the following year he was chosen to give the annual Edward D. Churchill lecture to the Excelsior Surgical Society meeting in Lahaina, Maui. He was also a member of the American College of Surgeons, the American Thoracic and International Surgical Society and the American Medical Association.

In December, 1964, Dr. Strode was honored at a testimonial dinner attended by some 700 friends. It was brought out then that Dr. Strode had trained more surgeons than any other doctor in Hawaii. In 1971 Dr. Strode retired from active practice. Speaking of his years as the senior partner in the Clinic, Dr. Harry Arnold, Jr. wrote in the "Straub Clinic Proceedings", January-February, 1971: "His firm, almost paternal guidance has been at once a stimulus and a balance wheel for his professional associates over the years. His presence, his firm but gracious manner as a presiding officer, his unfailing recognition and praise for achievement by young doctors, his admonitions to partners who seemed laggard in any respect, are all going to be sorely missed."

On August 13, 1972, Dr. Strode died in Honolulu at the age of 81.

In addition to his professional affiliations, he was a Mason, a Shriner, a Jester, and a member of Phi Beta Pi medical fraternity. He was widely read and enjoyed traveling, but his greatest hobby was his work.

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