Store owner loved traveling, shopping

10/28/2003

NAPOLEON - Thelma I. Naugle, 94, who with her husband, Mark, co-owned a pharmacy here for nearly 20 years, died Saturday in Northcrest Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where she had been for a month.

She had developed pneumonia, among other complications, after a fall in her home, her daughter Carolyn Hickman said.

Mrs. Naugle and her husband were owners of Napoleon Pharmacy, a Rexall store, from the mid-1950s until the early 1970s, when they retired and sold the business.

She was the store's clerk. Her husband was a pharmacist and had worked for the previous owner, who died.

“Everybody knew them,” her daughter said.

Mr. Naugle, whom she married in 1946, died Aug. 2, 1976.

Mrs. Naugle, in retirement, visited England and liked to travel the United States to visit family. Wherever she was, a favorite pastime was shopping.

“She was just a little shopper,” her daughter said. “We didn't always have to buy anything.”

Mrs. Naugle was a member of St. Paul United Methodist Church and took part for years in a Sunday school group of older women. She belonged to a card club, the Rebekah Lodge, and the Napoleon Soroptimist Club.

Until her fall, she had lived independently at home. She was able to make breakfast and supper, but she looked forward to her noontime delivery from Meals on Wheels.

“That's what helped her stay at home,” her daughter said. “She was a very determined little lady, that she was going to do what she wanted to do.”

Mrs. Naugle grew up in Toronto, the youngest of 13 children. Her first husband, William Hustwick, was a butcher for the Kroger Co. and was transferred from Ontario to Detroit and, eventually, to Napoleon before his death.

Surviving are her daughters, Carolyn Hickman and Ellenor Baan; four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 11 a.m. today in the Walker Mortuary, Napoleon.

The family suggests tributes to Meals on Wheels.