Houlihan (Strauss)

In 1926, Edward (Eddie) Strauss and his family moved to 42 South Montague Street, a rural section of Valley Stream’s West End. The house was built in 1923. If you looked out the rear second floor bedroom window, you would be facing present day Terrace Place. But the land was still woods back then and homes wouldn’t be built there for another 22 years. Eddie had lost his first wife, Hannah (nee Spiro) and his nine-year-old daughter Virginia, in 1924 and 1925, respectively. The newly-formed Strauss family now consisted of Eddie, his second wife Millicent, a medical doctor, whom he married in 1925, and two children from his first marriage: 12-year-old Grace and three-year-old Daniel. (Eddie’s older son, Eddie Jr., was nineteen at the time and off on his own.)

Eddie Strauss passed away in 1929 and Millicent remarried Eddie's best friend, Daniel Houlihan (who Daniel Strauss was named after). Millicent, now known as Dr. Houlihan, worked as a medical social worker for the Town of Hempstead. In 1940, Dr. Houlihan founded the Valley Stream Sanitarium. Her goal, however, was to open a community hospital in Valley Stream; and throughout the years she chaired many committees and participated in numerous grass root efforts to make this happen.

Her son, now known as Daniel Houlihan (his step-father adopted him) took over the sanitarium when he returned home from the service in 1946. Houlihan successfully ran the nursing home and also taught elementary school in Valley Stream. He and his wife Audrey had nine children while living in Valley Stream. In 1959, the family moved to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where their last child was born. Franklin General Hospital opened its doors in 1963, a couple of years after Dr. Houlihan left Valley Stream to live near her son and his family. Her vision, however, her legacy, will not be forgotten.