Harold Shryock was born to Alfred and Stella Shryock in Seattle, Washington, on April 14, 1906. He was an only child. Alfred Shryock was a 1899 graduate of the American Medical Missionary College (AMMC) in Battle Creek, Michigan (forerunner of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine). He had been president of his senior class and was a practicing physician. AMMC was affiliated with the world-famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, under the direction of John Harvey Kellogg, MD.
Alfred was unselfish. He believed that it was more important to help people rather than to gain wealth. After teaching for one year at AMMC, Alfred Shryock accepted an invitation from the Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to direct a hydrotherapy treatment unit owned by the church. The facility had been under the supervision of a male nurse and had fallen into disrepute. Conference officials believed that placing it under the direction of a physician could restore the unit’s good name.
The Shryocks arrived in Seattle in 1900. Alfred succeeded in moving the hydrotherapy unit to a better location where it began to prosper. He eventually employed several nurses and a woman physician, who administered treatments to patients suffering from upper respiratory infections. He also commuted by boat every two weeks to supervise a similar unit that was operated by a nurse in Bellingham, Washington.
Stella became a supervisor and receptionist at the new hydrotherapy unit. When Harold was born in 1906, babies were often delivered at home. Alfred employed a woman physician to attend Stella for what turned out to be a prolonged home delivery. Harold was a big baby, weighing in at 9 pounds. He had no formal birth certificate. His father mailed a postcard to King County, citing the essential facts of his son’s birth. A photocopy of this postcard served as Harold's birth certificate through the years. Stella spent most of her time homemaking and caring for Harold.
By 1908, Alfred Shryock had become somewhat prosperous. He had established a substantial family medicine practice, associated it with the hydrotherapy unit, and built a new home on Queen Anne Hill, a residential suburb of Seattle.
When Harold was about two and a half years old, the Shryocks decided to take a winter vacation and to visit some of the Seventh-day Adventist sanitariums being developed in Southern California. New sanitariums were being developed near San Diego (the Paradise Valley Sanitarium), Glendale (the Glendale Sanitarium), and Loma Linda. Because of its controversial beginning, the Loma Linda Sanitarium was considered to be of special interest, even somewhat sensational.
Most of the physicians at Loma Linda had been Alfred Shryock’s classmates at AMMC. They expressed their strong faith that the new institution was under a divine mandate, announced that they were about to organize a school of medicine, and invited Alfred to join the new faculty.
George K. Abbott, MD, a 1903 graduate of AMMC, medical superintendent of the Loma Linda Sanitarium, remembered that Alfred had had some experience teaching at AMMC and urged him to, "Come and join us." He specifically expressed his need for Shryock to teach courses in histology and human embryology.
On their way back to Seattle, Alfred rejected the idea as an unrealistic hope and commented to Stella, "I don't care to be affiliated with a one-horse medical school."
Nevertheless, the physicians at Loma Linda were strongly motivated and persistent. They continued their appeal by mail. Although the Shryocks were favorably impressed with their sincerity, they were not persuaded to move from Seattle. John Burden, the business manager at Loma Linda, offered Shryock a salary of $20 per week. When Alfred replied that he would not be able to meet his expenses on $20 per week, Burden replied that after due consideration he would offer $21 a week.
Being conscientious the Shryocks thought, "Maybe the Lord's hand is in this." So they prayed for a sign. If it was God's will that they should move to Loma Linda, would He send a buyer for their new home? Alfred listed his property with a realtor on his way to work one morning. The new home sold by noon that same day and was in escrow by sundown. Alfred Shryock became Loma Linda’s sixth physician.
Both Alfred (namesake of Shryock Hall) and Harold eventually became dean of the School of Medicine. And the “one-horse medical school” has now graduated more than 11,000 physicians (almost 2,000 more than any other school of medicine in the Western United States).