Jonathan Marshall Strom

Jonathan Marshall Strom passed away on December 6, 2025 in York, Pennsylvania unexpectedly at the age of 30. He was born June 30, 1995 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Randy and Neelam Strom. Jonathan will be remembered as someone who was there for people when people needed him the most. He had a genuine soul and would never turn someone away if they needed help or just someone to talk to. Jonathan kept a full trauma kit in his car in case he ever encountered a crisis or needed to provide support. His heart was too big for this world and he faced heart break lots of times. Jonathan always wore his heart on his sleeve no matter how much the world pushed him down. He was smart, witty, a light to those who knew him, a friend to all, and the sweetest person in the world. His family will always have a Jonathan sized hole in their lives.
Jonathan leaves behind his parents, Randy and Neelam Strom, his younger brother, David Strom, and his beloved cat, Zatana (Zatty).
A funeral service will be held Saturday, December 20, 2025 at 2pm Holloway Funeral Home, 501 Snow Hill Road, Salisbury, MD 21804. A visitation will be held one hour prior at 1PM. The service will be webcasted for those unable to attend. A reception will follow at 3:30PM at Park Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 31525 John Deere Dr, Salisbury, MD 21804.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Pocomoke Community Gardens Corner Sanctuary, PO Box 634 Pocomoke City, MD 21851 or the Lower Shore YMCA, PO Box 501, Pocomoke City, MD 21851.
Arrangements are in the care of Holloway Funeral Home, P.A., 501 Snow Hill Road. To share condolences and memories with the family, please visit www.hollowayfh.com.
Jonathan's Life Story: Jonathan Marshall Strom passed away on December 9, 2025 in York, Pennsylvania unexpectedly at the age of 30. He was born June 30, 1995 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Randy and Neelam Strom, and is named after the Marshall Islands. They lived on a military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where his father worked for the U.S. government and his mom was a missionary from India.
Jonathan moved with the family to Huntsville, Alabama when he was 2 years old and was homeschooled with his brother, David Strom, for the 10 years they lived in the area. Jonathan was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age and his mother made the decision to homeschool him to make sure he wouldn't fall behind in a larger classroom. He created lifelong friends in his neighborhood and church. Jonathan had a deep imagination, which he used to create games for the kids in the neighborhood. He kept these games going for months, creating characters specific to each person and holding the game rules at the tip of his tongue ready to start back after every meal, ensuring not to skip a step in the plot of the story he had dreamed up. The kids in the neighborhood also played games like 4-square and capture the flag, and whenever a team game was involved, he was always the captain and organizer. He was a leader to all and kept order amongst the unruly kids. His friends introduced him to online MMORPG and strategy video games which would continue as a lifelong passion.
Homeschooling allowed the family to travel and Jonathan had a curiosity for nature and history. The family visited zoos and museums which sparked curiosity for history and a love for all animals. At the behest of Jonathan, the family adopted and fostered 10 different dogs and cats along with having two rabbits. Jonathan also discovered a love for music and reading which he maintained the rest of his life
In 2007, the family moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where they initially lived on Chincoteague Island and later moved to Pocomoke City. Jonathan continued to be homeschooled, and the family joined homeschool groups in Princess Anne and Salisbury where Jonathan stood out as a leader to his peers and a friend to all in his classes.
In 2008, Jonathan joined a swim team, Coastal Aquatics, that practiced at UMES. Despite not having any swim team experience, he was allowed to join an experienced group of swimmers who normally require extensive experience to keep up with 5 mile workout days. After just one year of being on the team, Jonathan was a competitive swimmer who would go on to qualify for junior and state competitions around Maryland, even swimming against Michael Phelps. He approached every practice like it was a fierce competition and never turned down the opportunity to prove that he wanted to be there no matter how tired he was. Jonathan demonstrated he was willing to work hard and try something he wasn't familiar with to compete with others, even when he had less experience or was at a disadvantage. He carried this mentality with him the rest of this life and used his swimming experiences to draw from when he felt uncertain in any situation.
In 2010, Jonathan attended Holly Grove Christian School. Jonathan was a bright student and received good grades and praises from his teachers. He particularly enjoyed his science and history classes. Through the first few years of school, he travelled with other students to morning and evening swim practices while keeping up with his schoolwork. He worked hard but found time to complete his penultimate reading challenge conquering his dyslexia by reading 1100-pages of the Game of Thrones book in 3 days while juggling school and a heavy practice load from swim team.
Through his years in middle and high school, Jonathan continued to play online MMORPG games and loved all things Sci-Fi. He had a massive imagination and loved to use it to dive into whatever book he was reading or whichever video games he played. Some of his favorite Sci-Fi books include Lord of the Rings, Star Wars extended series, Game of Thrones, the Maze Runner series, Eragon series, and The Hunger Games. Jonathan loved to escape whatever he was working through in life by diving into a game or novel. He continued to grow his imagination and spent his life in awe of great works of fiction and of writers who created these alternate worlds. Jonathan turned an obstacle he had been given in reading from dyslexia into his favorite hobby.
By the end of his sophomore year of high school, Jonathan had shoulder issues and turned to a physical therapist and chiropractor for help. It was these experiences that helped solidify his interest in the sciences. It was also when he realized that he wanted to earn money to purchase a car. Jonathan enrolled in a lifeguard class at the YMCA in Pocomoke and began working there soon after, and worked summer jobs at an outdoor pool at Shads landing. Jonathan started teaching morning swim lessons to children. He truly loved working as a lifeguard with a team of peers and found fulfillment in teaching and looking after others. Through high school, Jonathan also kept up his interest in music, and transitioned from the piano to guitar. Through the years, he collected several electric and acoustic guitars. Jonathan attended the Beacon of Light Seventh Day Adventist church with his family and joined the church band. He played guitar with three friends and his brother every weekend for 5 years and maintained those relationships throughout the rest of his life.
Jonathan graduated from Holly Grove Christian School in 2014 with honors and attended Salisbury University to study biology. He opted to live in the dorms and be a part of his biology program hall to meet more people. He kept up with his friends from high school but branched out and formed new groups of friends at Salisbury.
The summer after his freshman year of college, Jonathan worked on Assateague Island on the Virginia side, with Beach Patrol for the National Park Service. This work combined his love for the beach, his desire to help people, his interest in working out, and his teambuilding skills. He loved this job and considered it the best job in the world. He worked at the beach for the next five years on both the Virginia side and the Maryland side of the park. He became the assistant lead guard and a valued senior member of the staff. In 2016, his second year on the patrol, the crew had the most saves ever recorded, even working 2 to 3 people short due to staffing issues. They worked overtime and without days off to make sure the beach was safe and to keep people from being swept out to sea due to permanent rip currents that summer. They saved hundreds of people from the ocean and performed lifesaving CPR on several patients. Their team received letters of gratitude from the people they saved and were awarded plaques and honors from the National Park Service for their dedication to public safety and heroism under intense conditions.
Jonathan graduated from Salisbury University in the winter of 2018 and worked his last summer on the Maryland side of the beach with Beach Patrol. The park needed a strong leader to keep the beach running. Jonathan decided to work with two other guards through the hurricane season in October. In October of 2019, Jonathan embarked on hiking the Appalachian Trail for two months with friends. They met friends along the way, including a dog that hiked and walked into town with them for food. Jonathan loved the outdoors and camping and was a way to free his spirit by wandering in the woods. He always talked about going back to finish the AT as the 240 miles they covered only wet his appetite to tackle the challenge of walking the full trail. When he finished hiking, Jonathan worked part time at the YMCA and at Lowe's in Pocomoke.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jonathan moved back to his parents house in Pocomoke, along with his brother. The family spent the spring and summer together in this same house for the first time in 6 years as a family.
Jonathan had a desire to utilize his Biology degree from college and relentlessly applied for jobs, even though the job market was frozen for months during the pandemic. In August of 2021, he received a job working nights for BD in Hunt Valley, Maryland on their manufacturing line. Although he didn't love the prospect of working nights, it was a step in the right direction and was a biology related opportunity. After six months of working as a temporary employee, he was offered a full-time job, demonstrating his work ethic and skillset. After 2 years of working nights, Jonathan was promoted to a quality control scientist, finally working a dayshift again. He was genuinely proud of his path to become a quality control scientist and valued his job. He also enjoyed having a scientist title. Through the years, he lived with a cohort of military people in Reisterstown, Maryland. He enjoyed the attitude of those friends and spent time watching dogs and helping his friends during their deployments all over the world. In 2022, Jonathan moved to York, Pennsylvania, as he felt more at home there than in the Baltimore suburbs. Throughout the last ten years, Jonathan became an ardent supporter of the prepper movement and often built friendships around people who shared those interests. His prepper mindset was driven by his desire to defend anyone who couldn't defend themselves. He consistently reminded those around him to defend themselves minimally. He continued to use his massive imaginations as a tool to prepare for potential world shifting events. He focused on building a store of supplies to help his family and loved ones survive for months or years and was saving up to buy a farm where he could be fully self-sufficient. Jonathan continued to play video games with friends and shifted to audio books, listening to dozens of books a year.
Jonathan had a rocky relationship over the years with religion. He struggled with how people express spirituality and how organized religion operated. Later in life he was drawn to the Bible and developed a relationship with God. He called his friends late at night, in what he called a midnight bible study, where he worked through their preexisting notion of religion to better understand their relationships with God. He firmly believed in being kind to others and tried to manifest that through this relationship with God. He felt drawn to God in the last year of his life in a way that seemed like he didn't really have a choice. Jonathan felt peace in the last year of his life and the family feels that this is due to this relationship with God.