Samuel A. Crooks, MD

1892-1950

Samuel Andrew Crooks was born June 18, 1892, on a farm near Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the third child of John and Nancy Crooks, both natives of County Antrim in northern Ireland. In this rural atmosphere, young Sam spent his childhood and early youth, developing the love of nature and simple living which never left him. His mother died when he was five years old. The demanding life of a prairie farm left little time for formal education, though he obtained what he could at every opportunity.

At age 17 he went to work, at 11 cents an hour, and 12 hours a day, as a “wiper” for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and was advanced within a year to fireman on the Moosejaw freight line. However, the rough life and language of his co-workers was out of harmony with his principles of living, even though he had no professed church affiliation at that time, and he returned to the farm.

During the next year on the farm he became acquainted with two neighbor families who were Seventh-day Adventists, and, at age 19, he became a baptized member of that faith.

The next winter, after his father died, he lived alone and entered the sixth grade in a “home school” nearby, graduating from the same school two years later at age 21. After working for three years more on the farm he went back to school for his secondary education, first at Maplewood Academy in Minnesota (1916-17), and then at Battleford Academy in Saskatchewan. He paid all his own expenses by winter work on the farm and summer literature evangelism. In 1920, at age 28, he graduated as president of his class, along with his future wife, Hulda Hoehn, who was class vice-president.

Samuel Crooks was determined to prepare himself for a life of service. So, even though he had to do work for all his expenses, he went on to college the next fall, attending Canadian Junior College in Alberta. His second year was spent at Pacific Union College, again working his way through. When he came to college that fall, he had only one shirt (which he washed by hand nightly) and no bedding, sleeping between two mattresses until discovered and helped by schoolmates.

The following summer was spent working in the Canadian harvest fields to pay off accumulated debts; he then headed for Loma Linda, without an acceptance, to enter medical school. He arrived nearly three weeks late with only ten dollars in his pocket but with a double measure of faith in his heart. He studies, worked and prayed, and again worked his way through, graduating in 1926.

After internship at the White Memorial Hospital, he hoped to return to his native Canada to open his practice. But, lacking even the fare home, he applied for a teaching vacancy that existed in the Department of Anatomy at Loma Linda. He was accepted and began work there July 1, 1927. Only then, after seven years of waiting, he and Hulda Hoehn were married on October 29, 1927. During these years of engagement she too was pursuing an education and had completed the course in dietetics, also at the College of Medical Evangelists.

Dr. Crooks taught under Dr. Llewellyn C. Kellogg for seven years, and, after his death, became responsible for all the gross anatomy teaching. In 1945 Dr. Crooks was named chairman of the department of anatomy. It was clear soon after he began to teach that this was his niche, and this was where he seemed destined to serve. Here was the place of usefulness and service he so long had sought. He told Mrs. Crooks that he would “stay with the school and teach whether the salary be little or not; and even if the school were penniless, he would continue at to salary at all.” (From The Journal of the Alumni Association, School of Medicine, College of Medical Evangelists, October, 1950, page 12.) Those who knew him recognized these words as typical of the man, spoken in humble dedication without a trace of hesitation or hope for praise.

His dedication to teaching was total, and extended beyond the confines of lecture hall and laboratory. “His students were his pride, and teaching them his joy.” (From The Medical Evangelist, September 15, 1950, page 1.) Dr. Roy Parsons must surely have had him in mind  when he said, in a mission report to the Loma Linda Sabbath school on the first Sabbath if the 1949 school term: “May I add a word in regard to the faculty of CME. Your teachers are men of integrity; men of sacrifice, standing for principle and serving God; men who will pray for and with you; men who believe that Jesus is coming again.” (From The Medical Evangelist, October 1, 1949, page 1.) Dr. Crooks particularly enjoyed anatomy dissection and slowly began to write an illustrated textbook and dissection manual, Handy Anatomy. To broaden his skill and further implement his teaching he took postgraduate work at Cornell and Toronto Universities.

Dr. Crooks never enjoyed robust health, and in fact in 1933 became insidiously ill; the diagnosis was determined to be acute myelogenous leukemia. The entire community of faculty, workers, medical students and friends prayed for his healing. He recovered, an event considered nothing short of miraculous by those who had made the diagnosis. Ten years later, while at the University of Toronto, he was critically injured in an automobile accident. He sustained, among other injuries, basal skull and maxillary fractures; he again made a remarkable recovery, but was never again in good health.

As a medical students, Samuel Crooks discovered that he had high blood pressure, and all through his 27 years of teaching had periods of circulatory impairment and uremia and saw balances slowly turn against him. His last week was spent in nature, surrounded by God’s handiwork, the love of which he constantly sought to pass on to others. On Thursday, August 31 he was not well; by Friday evening was seriously ill, and about midnight was hospitalized in near coma. He died quietly at 10:30 p.m., September 2, 1950, of coronary thrombosis.

“For many years it was the custom of Dr. Samuel A. Crooks, professor of anatomy at Loma Linda, to open the first anatomy class of the year with the reading of the poem ‘Blue Overalls.’ He arrived at class on this occasion, wearing a pair of blue overalls.

“This was his method of impressing the students with the dignity of labor—with the idea that the real work was to be expected of them during their medical school years, and that service to humanity was to be their goal forever after. The overalls worn on this first day of each year were always a new pair—to represent the beginning of a new sort of life, a new career, a fresh beginning.

“When Dr. Crooks died at Loma Linda, the night before the new year started, all preparations had been made for his customary introduction to the freshmen. In his office, awaiting the Sunday morning class, lay the new overalls and the poem.” (From The Journal of the Alumni Association, School of Medicine, College of Medical Evangelists, October, 1950, page 3.)

It was also a custom of Dr. Crooks to open his anatomy classes with a verse or two from his well-used Bible, or a carefully selected poem. Through the courtesy of Mrs. Crooks, one of his two well-worn Bibles, and the very pair of overalls that was laid out for use the day following his death, are dedicated with the Samuel A. Crooks Chair of Anatomy. On the wall above the chair is a photograph of Dr. Crooks, the Resolution-Dedication of the Class of 1951 and the poem “Blue Overalls.”

In death as he did in his daily life, Dr. Crooks fulfilled his favorite Bible text: “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” (II Samuel 22:36b and Psalms 18:35b.)