Dr. George F. Straub immigrated from Germany to Honolulu in 1907, built a 15-room, two-story home at Miller and South Beretania streets and then founded The Clinic in the first floor of his house.

The Clinic that Straub began in 1920 became the first group medical practice in the Islands. His former colleagues later renamed their practice Straub Clinic in his honor.

Straub retired from the partnership in 1933 and his partners sold the house to the Social Service Bureau, which took over care of the sick "and troubled" of the day.

When World War II broke out, Straub — a surgeon — responded to the need for doctors and returned to the practice that bore his name, as an employee.

After he retired at the end of the war for the second time, Straub — who played cello with the Honolulu Symphony — turned his passion to hand-crafting violins. He often visited with Queen Lili'uokalani and dedicated a violin to her, which included a label that carried the first notes of "Aloha 'Oe," the song that the queen dedicated to her people.

Albert Einstein owned and played another of Straub's violins.

Upon his death in 1966 at the age of 87, Straub dedicated the bulk of his $1 million estate to various organizations such as the Honolulu Symphony Society — with the rest dedicated to medical research and hospital care for the poor.

Some of the eight violins that Straub bequeathed to the Junior Guild for the Honolulu Symphony ended up in the hands of young musicians at the Hawai'i School for the Deaf and Blind.