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Ask the Pharmacist - 100-year-old Hubert Will
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Ask the Pharmacist: 100-year-old HUbert Will

Hubert Will with Pharmacy Dean Ian Mathison.

    Hubert Will (P'27) can reminisce until the cows come home - really.
    "I once walked a cow from Hastings to Battle Creek," he says, adding, "I wanted to go visit a friend and mom said I had to take a cow with me."
    Those reminiscences include a time when a slice of pie cost a mere 10 cents in downtown Big Rapids, Old Main was the primary location for daily classes at the Ferris Institute and founder and President Woodbridge N. Ferris anchored the roster of faculty members.
    Will has experienced a part of history that most people know only from books. To this day, the charismatic 100-year-old pharmacist fondly recalls his days at Ferris and the people who are remembered through their contributions. Such as Garrett Masselink, for instance, who taught at the Institute before becoming its second president after Woodbridge's death in 1929.
    Will clearly remembers seeing both Masselink and Ferris on campus and even having a one-on-one chat with the University's founder. Ferris was, of course, also a U.S. Senator, but Will's brushes with statesmen didn't end there. When Will was five President Teddy Roosevelt, during a campaign whistle stop in Will's home town of Hastings, made a prediction about him.
    "He said I would grow up to be a tall, curly-haired man," Will chuckles, remembering how the president picked him out of the crowd. Roosevelt hit the proverbial nail on the head about Will, who became a handsome young man. But besides being a dapper gentleman, he also added a long career to his list of attributes.
    The farm boy from Hastings came to Ferris Institute to study Pharmacy, and went on to a work in a variety of pharmacies and for several pharmaceutical companies, including Shapero Pharmacy in 1930s Detroit, where he literally bumped into Joe Louis and shared an elevator with Babe Ruth while making deliveries. He moved to Lansing in 1948 and opened his own establishment in north Lansing, Will Variety Store, in 1962.
    Will's spunk and zest for life resonate in his stories about family, friends and a career that spanned many decades, 32 years of which he ran the Lansing store bearing his name.
   

Hubert Will as a 1927 Ferris graduate.

"Someone once told me, 'Plan your work and work your plan.' That's the motto I lived by."
    What else did Will take with him all these years? Memories. His favorite Ferris classes included Materia Medica and Chemistry. He also fondly recalls the Pharmic Ball ("The punch was a wonderfully exhilarating concoction and flowed freely during the entire dance," states the 1927 yearbook.) And in addition to the classmates and teachers he met along the way, most important was meeting his wife, Jennie, on a blind date.
    But time can never steal from us/The memory of these happy days, says the poem "Robber Time," which is also featured in that 1927 yearbook. To know how true that is, just ask Hubert Will.