 Strain's brother, Dr. Thomas E. Strain, Jr. (1924-2015), was born in Dallas, Texas, while their father was a student at the Baylor College of Medicine.The Strains moved to Shreveport in 1926.The brothers practiced pediatrics with their father and Dr. Dorothy Mack Strain (1928-2009), the wife of Thomas Strain, Jr. A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, she was reared in Springhill in northern Webster Parish.