Homer Stryker

Stryker was born in Wakeshma Township, Michigan on November 4, 1894, later graduating from Athens High School as part of the class of 1913.

[1] Stryker earned his teaching certificate from Western Michigan University in 1916 and taught in a one-room schoolhouse in the Keweenaw Bay school system in the Upper Peninsula before serving in the American infantry in France during World War I.

[2] He got tutoring in French from a fellow student, and was later able to begin his medical studies in 1921 after earning enough for the tuition and passing the foreign language exam.

[1] Stryker began his medical practice in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and established offices in Borgess Hospital, where he was the only orthopedic surgeon in the region.

In 1935, Stryker began tinkering in his workshop with medical devices, developing a rubber heel for walking casts as well as an innovative hospital bed that reduced the incidence of bedsores in bed-ridden patients.