Walking Advertisement

"Walking Advertisement" - What a marvelous description for this character!

courtesy of KJHurlbut - Ancestry

Dwight Moody Hurlbut was the son of Rev Benj Franklin Hurlbut & Caroline R Wright.  He married 3 times - Marie Knapp, Mary Fordyce & Anne Hanick. While he had no children, his legacy was spelt out in his delightful obit!

Detroit Free Press, 24 Mar 1999

Dwight Hurlbut - Owned Nutri Foods in Royal Oak

Humorous Dwight Hurlbut was a walking advertisement for the health food he sold in his landmark Royal Oak store. He lived to be 99. Mr Hurlbut, who also lived in Royal Oak in recent years, died of congestive heart failure March 14 at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He bought Nutri Foods on South Main in 1950, when only a few so-called health food nuts consumed the vitamin C, antioxidants and garlic capsules that have become staples in many American homes. Come flu season, customers could count on seeing Mr Hurlbut walking the aisles, straightening stock as he suggested remedies. He also preached healthy living on local radio and TV shows. More recently, Mr Hurlbut, who remained active at the store until the past year, would sit in an overstuffed chair in a cluttered office overlooking the store's bank of cash registers. There he dispensed advice and caustic gripes about the federal Food and Drug Administration. "Herbs and vitamins are foods!" he bellowed one day at age 93. "If the government wants to regulate them, do we need a doctor's prescription to buy meat?" Nutri Foods was considered a hip outpost years before Royal Oak evolved into metro Detroit's funkiest suburb. The store's crowded shelves, wide selection and numerous periodicals and cookbooks attracted customers from across southeast Michigan. Mr Hurlbut bought the store after seeing it for sale in a want ad and thinking it would be a good business that he could run in his retirement years. "I stepped inside, and I could see all the possibilities. Vitamins were just coming into play," Hurlbut recalled in 1993. Said longtime manager John McEntee: "His whole life was the store. He loved to help people." Mr Hurlbut outlived three wives. With the help of two of them, he ran a 30-acre farm for many years in Clarkston, where he grew organic vegetables for the store and raised cattle for dinner. Mr Hurlbut was born in 1900 in Massachusetts and attended Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, and the University of Michigan. He worked as an accountant for several music stores before he bought Nutri Foods. He is survived by his wife, Anne; a stepson, Fred Ribitts; a stepdaughter, Rita Grants; a half-brother, John Hurlbut, and five grandchildren. Visitation will be Friday from 1 to 8 p.m. at the William Sullivan & Son Funeral Home, 705 W Eleven Mile in Royal Oak. The funeral will be Saturday at 11 am at the funeral home. Burial will follow in Roseland Park Cemetery in Berkley.