Until coming down with Parkinson's disease several years ago, Philip L. Nagle Jr. made an old-fashioned ice cream so rich and flavorful that customers thought nothing of driving an hour or more to his rural northern Carroll County crossroads general store to purchase a cone, quart or gallon of the seemingly heaven-made concoction.

Mr. Nagle, owner of Simmons General Store in Snydersburg, and an ice cream maker for more than 60 years, died Sunday of pneumonia in his home next to the store. He was 82.

For part of the year, ice cream aficionados who headed there expecting scoops of exotic boutique ice cream were bound to be disappointed because Mr. Nagle confined his production to chocolate and vanilla.

In summer months, however, when berries and local fruit were in season, he added cherry, black raspberry, pineapple or strawberry ice cream to his hand-lettered sign.

For 62 years, he was the guardian of his mother-in-law Estie Simmons' ice cream recipe that she began making for family and friends in the early 1920s.

The ice cream proved to be so popular that Mrs. Simmons and her husband decided to make the product available in their general store, which they opened in the late 1920s.

Through the squeaky, swinging screen door of the store -- which looks as if it were lifted from a Norman Rockwell illustration -- customers came to buy ice cream and other general merchandise that lined the shelves.

Born on Boston Street in Baltimore and raised on a farm in Boring, Mr. Nagle was a graduate of Carroll County public schools. He met his future wife, Marjorie Lavina Simmons, in the general store, which was Snydersburg's social center.

"They got married in 1933 and after spending their 'honeymoon' watching a movie, went to the store and began hand-dipping ice cream, and they've been doing it ever since," said daughter Jean E. Neudecker, whose husband, Carroll, now makes the ice cream.

Mr. Nagle, who worked as a house painter and wallpaper hanger during the day, used to make the ice cream in a metal cylinder packed in ice. A belt attached to a whirring electric motor turned the paddles. Since 1961, however, the ice cream has been made in a stainless-steel 10-gallon drum, with daily production typically reaching about 160 gallons during the summer months.

Mr. Nagle's preference was chocolate.

"He used to get up at 3 a.m. and meet the Koontz Dairy cream truck and then start making ice cream. After he was finished, he'd then go to work," said the daughter.

Mr. Nagle was gifted with a wry sense of humor. He dispensed dollops of advice and salient observations with his ice cream, which he carefully and precisely dipped from a large white freezer chest.

A dip was 60 cents. A quart cost $2 and a gallon $5.25.

If a customer was taking ice cream home, he packed the container high and methodically sculpted its top into a dome, which he then covered with waxed paper. He never used lids.

The container was then wrapped tightly with sheets of of the Carroll County Times, which ensured that the bearer would arrive home with ice cream and not ice cream soup.

"No fancy stuff. No sprinkles. Just ice cream," said the daughter.

Mrs. Neudecker also recalled that in the early 1950s, when the general store had the only television set for miles, farmers and their families regularly filled the store not only to eat ice cream but to catch a show on the new invention.

"They'd sit there eating ice cream, playing cards and watching the 'Lone Ranger,' " she said, laughing.

A baseball field behind the store provided a field full of customers. On warm summer nights, it wasn't uncommon for Mr. Nagle to sell 35 gallons of ice cream to hungry players and spectators who patiently lined up and waited as he scooped it into cones and filled dishes. "It resembles old-fashioned ice cream that sticks to the roof of your mouth, and that's the charm of it," said Manchester Mayor Elmer C. Lippy, long a devotee of Mr. Nagle's ice cream. "It reminded me of my childhood."

Patrick Flynn, a native of Ireland who owns Cascade Lake, a nearby resort that dates to the 1920s, said, "I have a liking for ice cream and appreciate that it is homemade. My kids would rather eat Simmon's Ice Cream than the ice cream we sell here and when we have visitors, we always purchase a tub so they can experience it," he said.

Mr. Nagle didn't roam far from the rolling hills of Carroll County.

A New York Yankees fan, he once ventured to New York to see a game.

"It was his only time away from Snydersburg and he was glad to get back," said Mrs. Neudecker.

Services were held yesterday at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Hampstead.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Nagle is survived by two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Sun staff writer Anne Haddad contributed to this article.

Pub Date: 3/19/99