Dennis Lange

1952 - 2021

(News story) Dennis Lange, an Old West End resident, restaurateur - twice - and neighborhood champion in word and deed who also devoted abundant energy to the Lucas County Fair and the county Republican Party, died Monday in Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center. He was 68.

He had coronavirus, said his sister Michele Ustar.

Mr. Lange was a former president of the Old West End Association, a longtime county Republican Party central committee member and former interim party chairman, and had been an officer and board member of the Lucas County Agricultural Society, which runs the county fair.

"He enjoyed being involved. He was never one to rest," said Tim Reynolds, who met Mr. Lange in 1983. They were longtime partners and remained close.

"We were like brothers," Mr. Reynolds said. "He was a best friend you could always count on."

"He was so easy to be around. He was gregarious and loved to smile and make people laugh," said Kim Huss. Mr. Lange was the father of the sons of Ms. Huss and her wife, Brenda Huss.

Mr. Lange lived in the Old West End since the 1980s, and during the mid-1990s opened Pumpernickel's Deli & Cafe at Collingwood Boulevard and Delaware Avenue. He offered soup and hearty sandwiches, fresh-baked pies, and Sunday brunch.

"People came in and asked, 'Why did you open here?' I told them this is home to me," Mr. Lange told The Blade in 1997. "I just feel that this is where I'm supposed to be."

Pumpernickel's "was Dennis. He was cheerful and had banter with customers," Mr. Reynolds said.

Mr. Lange closed the deli in 2005, after he was hired by the Lucas County Board of Elections. That employment ended in 2011, and in 2015 he reopened Pumpernickel's, several doors from the original location, at the urging of friends. He closed again in 2018, citing a lack of business.

He volunteered for most Old West End activities, from the annual festival and the Agnes Reynolds Jackson Arboretum to the holiday season Tours de Noel put on by the Women of the Old West End.

"He loved the neighborhood and the neighbors," Mr. Reynolds said. "He'd say it reminded him a lot of his hometown of Mantua [Ohio], how everybody watched out and took care. It had a hometown feel."

Pastor Mary Sullivan of St. Paul's United Methodist Church, where he was a member, said: "People knew they could count on him to show up."

And they knew he'd offer opinions - and remain hospitable.

"He knew how to practice grace and sustain friendship, and friends were his family in Toledo," Pastor Sullivan said.

Mr. Lange was in the thick of Lucas County Republican Party politics, through peacetime and turmoil. He believed in what the party stood for, Mr. Reynolds said, and served as a precinct committeeman and as a ward chairman.

He was a charter member of the Lucas County Log Cabin Republicans. In 2001 he unsuccessfully ran as at-large candidate for Toledo City Council.

Born Aug. 9, 1952, in Ravenna, Ohio, to Lillian and Frank Lange, he was a 1970 graduate of Crestwood High School in Mantua and continued his studies at Hixson School of Floral Design, Lakewood, Ohio. He worked in floral businesses and, for a time, operated his own shop in Mantua, where he served eight years on village council.

A job with a wholesale horticulture supply business brought him to the Toledo area, and floral design remained an interest and pursuit.

Surviving are his sons, Brenner and Brayden Huss; brothers, William, Gerald, and Jack Lange, and sisters, Michele Ustar, Connie Rager, and Jennifer Rogala.

Services will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Green Family Funeral Home, Mantua, where calling hours are to begin at 11 a.m. Saturday. A video memorial service also will be available Saturday on St. Paul's United Methodist Church's Facebook page, with a link available via stpauls umctoledo.com.

This is a news story by Mark Zaborney. Contact him at mzaborney@theblade.com.