Hans Stroo

On August 21, 2025, Hans Herman Stroo died at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, Oregon, after a brief illness. Born July 7, 1927, in Haarlem, Netherlands, he was 98 years old at the time of his death.

Hans was the only child of Jan and Adriana Stroo. His early life was marked by the death of his father, after which his mother remarried, affording him three step siblings—all of them now deceased. In his teen years, he endured the dangers and hardships of the Nazi occupation of his country. Following WWII, he earned a medical degree at the University of Leiden; he then ventured to New York City in 1951 to pursue internship and residency, ultimately specializing in psychiatry.

Young Dr. Stroo’s plans to return to the Netherlands were overturned by courtship and marriage with Mary Louise Offner, whom he met at a fateful Long Island cookout, a blind date that he fondly recounted as a turning point in his life. Over a seven-year period, the couple had four children, initially settling the family in Roanoke, Virginia. There he served as Director of the Roanoke Guidance Center, an agency focused on the care of children. In 1968, after the family moved to Ohio, Hans held a position for nine years as Administrator for mental health services in Columbus. In 1976, Hans and Mary Lou moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where he finished his professional career, dividing his time between his leadership role in the community mental health system and private practice. He retired at age 70 in 1997.

In retirement, Hans and Mary Lou resided in Medford, Oregon, attracted in large part by the beauty and moderate climate of the Northwest. He remained active, volunteering in the hospital and in elementary school classrooms, playing bridge and tennis, writing and painting. Mary Lou, his wife of nearly 60 years, died in 2016, a loss that he deeply mourned.

An account of Hans’s life would be incomplete without acknowledging the range and quality of his gifts, among them his creative energy, his intelligence and broad learning, his capacity to entertain and inject humor, and his dedication to service and personal growth. Like many naturalized citizens, he was deeply appreciative of the opportunities afforded him in the United States and was dedicated to the rights and obligations of citizenship in a democracy. By nature a relatively private person, he nevertheless shared his talents with a clever and generous spirit that won him the respect and affection of many.

Hans is survived by his four children Hans F. Stroo and wife Nicki Stroo, Eric E. Stroo and wife Melissa Skelton, Brian J. Stroo and husband Daniel S. White, Nora Brown and husband Nolen Brown; grandchildren Marissa Stroo and husband Eric Baker, Sara Stroo, Eric S. Stroo and wife Sara Tetrault, Hans D. Stroo and partner David Newland, Kelsey Brown, and Adrian Brown; great grandchildren Archer Stroo and Felix Brown. In the Netherlands, there are several surviving descendants of Hans’s deceased stepbrother Jan Frederik Petri, including Mariska Petri and her husband Henk Wolff.