Pharmacist ran drug store, then taught at jr. high

7/23/2008

Paul L. Klag, 88, a pharmacist who closed his North Toledo drug store and became a junior high science teacher while keeping up his pharmacy license, died yesterday in Toledo Hospital from complications of a stroke suffered July 14.

He and his wife, Danna, lived independently in their Sylvania home. He planted tomatoes this year and still cut the grass on his small tractor.

Mr. Klag held a pharmacy license 50 years, through 1999. He retired in the 1980s after teaching seventh and eighth-grade science for more than 20 years at Perrysburg Junior High School.

"He thought [junior high] was a wonderful age," his daughter Karlene Henderson said. "He would take the time. He didn't give them answers, but would lead them down the path of how to get there. He would teach them how to study and how to learn. It wasn't spoon-feeding. It wasn't hand-holding.

"He thought those students were bright and brilliant and thoroughly enjoyed sharing his enthusiasm for science and chemistry and nature," she said. "Everyone wanted to make him proud."

His teaching career began after he closed the door for the last time in 1964 at Scott's Rexall Drug Store, Lagrange and Hudson streets.

The store was owned by his stepfather, Walter Scott, when he began to work there in 1949 after he received a pharmacy degree from the University of Toledo.

"He saw that as a family endeavor," his daughter said. "He found his calling in pharmacy."

The family lived above the business, an old-fashioned drug store complete with soda fountain, and became part of the neighborhood. He compounded many of the prescriptions he filled. He liked helping customers, and he liked to be a mentor to the students who worked in the store, his daughter said.

For years, the family took camping vacations around the country as "part of his love of nature," his daughter said. Later, he and his wife stayed close to home, but kept bird feeders in their yard and took regular birding walks at Magee Marsh.

Mr. Klag, a graduate of Scott High School, received his education degree from UT as well.

He was an Army Air Corps veteran of World War II and worked in the Pentagon, using room-sized tabulating machines to generate lists ofwhich soldiers and airplanes were deployed where.

Surviving are his wife, Danna, whom he married Oct. 17, 1942; daughters, Kristine Schaub and Karlene Henderson; son, Scott, and eight grandchildren.

Services will be at 1 p.m. tomorrow in the Reeb Funeral Home, where the body will be after 11 a.m. tomorrow.

The family suggests tributes to Disabled American Veterans.