CORPUS CHRISTI — Whether you know it as Hamlin's Pharmacy or Hamlin's Fountain and Gifts, either way, it's considered a Corpus Christi institution.
Now that the man who started it all decades ago has passed away, we here at KRIS 6 News are remembering his life, his legacy and the memories he left behind.
"It was just a different time, a different era of pharmacists,” recalls Karl Arnold’s daughter, Karen Nicholson.
The date? 1960. A young pharmacist by the name of Karl Arnold would open up a store in Corpus Christi. A store that would stand the test of time.
"The store was the love in his life,” Nicholson remembers. “He came down every day. Got up and came to work every day and just really loved coming down here and seeing everybody.”
His daughter has run the shop since her dad retired in 20-17 but her memories date back to when business first started booming.
"I used to come down here when I was four with my grandmother and hang out during the day so that's where my love for the store began,” she tells us remembering that day like it was just yesterday.
Once she finished high school, Nicholson began working with her dad full-time.
“We worked together every day and I don't think we ever fought,” Nicholson says. “And that's what was great too. Having your dad to work for when you have children because you could takeoff when you really need to. He was very understanding that way.”
Arnold would encourage not only his daughter but his customers, as well. A good pharmacist, she says, and an even better listener.
"My mom told when they were in college that he wanted to be a bartender and instead became a pharmacist,” Nicholson recalls. Either way she says, her dad would have been good at both since he always took the time to listen.
"He really enjoyed listening to people's problems and trying to help them solve them and just trying to help people,” she says.
Her father passed away on Sunday and now she’d like us to remember her father the we he would have wanted us to.
"Just how much he loved his family, all of his grand kids so much,” Nicholson says. Adding. “I hope people remember how important small community businesses are to our communities.”
