Dr. Hugo J. Strieder
Moulton, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
BORN ON MARCH 21, 1907, IN A SMALL FARMHOUSE FOUR MILES EAST OF MOULTON NEAR THE SMALL HAMLET OF KOMENSKY, HUGO J. STRIEDER KNEW AT A YOUNG AGE THAT HE WAS DESTINED TO BE A DOCTOR. FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS, HE GRADUATED AS SALUTATORIAN OF MOULTON HIGH SCHOOL IN THE CLASS OF 1926. WHEN HE WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, LOCAL DENTIST AND MENTOR, DR. P.O. PUCK, ENCOURAGED HUGO TO ATTEND COLLEGE AND STUDY MEDICINE. HUGO ATTENDED BALDWIN’S BUSINESS COLLEGE IN YOAKUM WHERE HE LEARNED SKILLS THAT WOULD LATER HELP HIM PAY FOR SCHOOL. IN 1932, HE GRADUATED FROM ST. EDWARD’S UNIVERSITY IN AUSTIN AND THEN THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL SCHOOL IN GALVESTON IN 1934. AFTER HIS INTERNSHIP AND RESIDENCY AT BRACKENRIDGE HOSPITAL IN AUSTIN, DR. STRIEDER WAS OFFERED A POSITION, BUT DECLINED IN FAVOR OF RETURNING TO MOULTON. IN 1936, HUGO MARRIED LILLIAN MIGL AND BEGAN A PRIVATE PRACTICE IN ROWENA. BY 1940, HE STARTED HIS OWN PRACTICE IN MOULTON ON ELM AND ARNIM STREETS. SPEAKING FLUENT GERMAN, DR. STRIEDER BECAME THE AREA’S COUNTRY DOCTOR AS WELL AS BEING ACTIVE IN THE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT, KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS AND ST. JOSEPH’S CATHOLIC CHURCH. DURING WWII, DR. STRIEDER SERVED IN THE NAVY MEDICAL CORPS, HONING HIS DIAGNOSTIC AND SURGICAL SKILLS. AFTER THE WAR, DR. STRIEDER BOUGHT LAND IN 1946 AND OPENED A CLINIC AND HOSPITAL. HIS PRACTICE PROVIDED A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE PRE-WAR DOCTORS AND THE ADVANCES IN MEDICINE FROM WWII. DR. STRIEDER MADE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT IN THE AREA FROM EVERYDAY WOUNDS TO OUTBREAKS OF POLIO. IN NEED OF REST, HE CLOSED THE HOSPITAL IN 1953 AND EVENTUALLY TOOK A JOB WITH THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION. HE DIED ON DECEMBER 11, 1955, AND IS BURIED NEAR HIS BELOVED “HOSPITAL ON THE HILL.” (2019)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in 1907 in a farmhouse near the tiny hamlet of Komensky, Hugo Strieder decided early that he would be a doctor and worked his way there, paying for medical school with business skills learned along the way before graduating from the University of Texas medical school in 1934. He turned down a city offer to come home to Moulton, where — fluent in German — he became the classic country doctor, treating everything from everyday wounds to polio outbreaks. Navy Medical Corps service in World War II sharpened his diagnostic and surgical skills, and in 1946 he opened his own clinic and "hospital on the hill," bridging the pre-war generation of rural doctors and the medical advances the war produced.
Why it matters
His life captures the vanishing world of the American country doctor and how wartime medicine reshaped small-town health care in the years after 1945.
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Related people
- · Hugo J. Strieder
- · Lillian Migl Strieder
Themes & tags
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