Hjalmer E. Roe

Hjalmer E. Roe, owner of Jalmer's Health Foods on Sylvania Avenue, for years one of the most popular health food stores in the Toledo area, died Saturday, November 21, 2015, at Mercy St. Anne Hospital of complications from kidney and heart failure. He was 84.

Also known as Whitey, he was an accomplished card player and a fixture in Toledo card rooms for several decades.

He opened up his store in 1970, on the corner of Watson Avenue in West Toledo, long before many people recognized the value of exercise, nutrition and vitamins. Runners and weight-lifters were among the first customers, and business grew quickly. In 1980, the store moved to a larger building across the street.

Inside was a small restaurant, serving soups, salads and sandwiches, including the "Biggie," which consisted of seven-grain bread, albacore tuna, egg salad, cheese and sprouts. A neon sign in the window pro-claimed the store's slogan, "Eat Well, Be Well."

Roe had silvery-white hair and a goatee, and he often wore a yellow sport coat. He kept abreast of the latest news on nutrition and also enjoyed chatting with customers, cutting slack to those who couldn't af-ford to pay the full price, and joking with those who said they couldn't afford it, but could.

He retired in 2001, and the store closed in 2007.

Hjalmer Emanuel Roe Jr. was born September 13, 1931, in Toledo, the youngest of four children to Stella Clatworthy and Hjalmer Roe. His father drove buses and streetcars, and his mother cut hair and sold magazines door to door. They eventually ran a boarding house on Collingwood Boulevard.

As a boy, Roe enjoyed going with his sister Gloria to the Toledo Zoo, and he was a first-rate chess player. To earn money, he let neighborhood kids punch him in the stomach for a nickel.

Creative, imaginative and inquisitive, he graduated from Scott High School in 1949. While other students had stock phrases under their senior yearbook pictures such as "A winning attitude" and "She'll go far," the caption under Roe's photo read, "The man from Mars," the origin of which remains a mystery.

He met Doris Duncan while she was working in the pet department in the basement of the old Woolworth's store on Superior Street. The couple eloped, marrying in 1953 in a courthouse in Monroe, Michigan.

After living briefly in a downtown Toledo apartment, he and his wife bought a house on Gany Mede Drive in what was then Trilby. He would live in the house the remainder of his life.

Roe began working for Public Finance Corp. in Toledo, helping customers manage their bills, but he claimed he could never have afforded to get married it weren't for his success at the card table.

He started playing as a teen and for the next 60 years could often be found in various card rooms, particularly the back room of the old Superior Bar and Grill on Superior. He played pinochle, poker and rummy, and more recently became an excellent Texas hold'em player at casinos in Detroit, Las Vegas, Toledo and Tampa, FL.

He had two children, Hjalmer E. Roe III, also known as Randy, who was born in 1954, and Sam, born in 1960. The family collected rocks together, digging for trilobites in Sylvania; gold in Colorado; rubies in North Carolina, and copper in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The family also enjoyed going to Detroit Tigers games, including the 1984 World Series; visiting his mother's farm in Hillsdale, MI, and playing golf. Roe was a talented golfer, playing in leagues at Ottawa Park, Tamaron and Detwiler. He once got a hole in one at Tamaron.

It was on a golf trip that Roe decided to devote his life to health foods. As he told the story, he and three friends were driving through the foggy Smoky Mountains when their car went off a cliff. The car miraculously landed nose first in thick mud, saving the occupants.

Roe decided then and there to give up smoking. Then he announced he was quitting his finance job and opening a health food store. His family thought he was kidding.

He wasn't, and over the next year the family gutted, painted and patched up an old building on Sylvania.

For the next three decades, Roe worked at the store – first fulltime, then three days a week as his son Randy ran it the other days. Roe considered opening additional stores, but he said he valued his time more than money.

He and his wife went on rock-hunting expeditions until she died of a chronic illness in 1990. He also traveled with his three sisters to Europe and took trips to Egypt, Norway and the Car-ibbean.

He was self-taught, for years studying philosophy, art, religion and politics. He bought instructional videos on the cosmos and tapes on languages. He was a student of the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. He carefully read the Bible and other religious texts.

He played cards and golfed into his 80s, and he was a devoted grandfather. Last year, he developed health problems, but with the help of son Randy and grandson Hjalmer IV, he was able to live independently at home

He is survived by sons, Hjalmer E. "Randy" Roe III (Sylvia Gumersell) of Ottawa Lake, MI, and Sam (Nara Schoenberg) of Oak Park, IL; grandsons, Hjalmer E. Roe IV (fianceé, Tonya Schmitz), Nick (Lindsay), Calvin, and Zepha-niah, and great-grandsons, Cameron and Kellan. He was preceded in death by his wife, Doris, and sisters, Rosemary Duggan, Donna Vadas and Gloria Harned.

According to his wishes, services will be private. Burial will be in Toledo Memorial Park.

In the months before he died, Roe was studying Stoicism and the art of living in the present. He accepted aging as an important part of life, as wonderful as childhood.

Though his religious views were always evolving, he believed the best way to worship God was to take care of your body, challenge your mind and enjoy life.

He often said, "Heaven is right here on Earth. What better place could there be?"