Dr. Louis Ostrom, A. B. M. D., was born in Helsingland, Sweden, May 1, 1874, and came to America when six years old. His father is a pipe-organ builder, known among hundreds of churches all over the country. Young Ostrom attended public schools, and as soon as he was able to work, was at one time or another employed during vacations in nearly all the shops of Moline. After becoming a student of Augustana College, he worked during the different vacations as section hand on the street car line, printer in a job office, and pressman to the Moline Daily Dispatch, etc. While a student, he also studied music under Dr. Gustav Stolpe; was director of the band, orchestra, and mandolin clubs, cornetist, and later elaeionetist with the Sixth Regiment Band, Illinois National Guard, of Moline, and Strasser’s Second Regiment Band of Davenport, Iowa. He also took active part in all college athletics, being a member of both baseball and football teams. He graduated from Augustana College in 1895, in the English classical course, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. During the summer before graduation he was assistant organist to Dr. Stolpe in the Moline Lutheran Church, and after graduation was at Moor’s Prairie, Minnesota, as organist and music teacher. While there he received a call from Augustana College to become professor of wind and stringed instruments in the Conservatory of Music, but declined because of intended medical study. He studied medicine at the State University of Iowa, at Iowa City, where he earned his way through by playing with orchestras and in churches, caring for a doctor’s office for his room rent, and earning his board by serving as waiter at a restaurant until the end of his course. After leaving Iowa City, he was employed by the State Hospital at Independence, Iowa, but wishing to continue his medical studies, he resigned and went to St. Louis to the Missouri Medical College and Policlinic. During his medical studies he paid most particular attention to the eye and ear, but after his course at St. Louis, located in 1899 at Leonardville, Kansas, and engaged in general practice. While there, he received a call from the Kansas Medical College at Topeka, Kansas, to the Chair of Chemistry, and as director of the Chemical laboratories, a position he held for one year, but as this interfered with private practice, he resigned and located in Rock Island, Illinois, as a specialist, devoting all his professional attention to diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. In the spring term of 1903 he was acting professor of Botany at Augustana College, during the absence of Professor J. A. Udden, and later was professor in anatomy, physiology, histology and the pre-medical department. While doing post graduate work at New York, was professor of Natural History at Upsala College, Kenilworth, New Jersey. Dr. Ostrom is adjunct to St. Anthony’s Hospital and examiner for more than a dozen insurance companies. Since his graduation in medicine, he has. taken post graduate courses with some of the most noted specialists in America.
In the Spring of 1907, Dr. Ostrom was elected alderman of the Seventh Ward.
In 1899 Dr. Ostrom was married to Miss Sophia Hult, formerly secretary to the business manager of Augustana College. They have one child, Meredith.