< Previous90 COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018Features‘Quintessential Galveston’Islander works to carve out a business by making beach chairsStory by John Wayne Ferguson | Photos by Kelsey WallingTo Frank Maceo, there are two kinds of beach chairs.There’s the kind that you can get at a big-box store — $20 metal-and-nylon contraptions you’re just as likely to leave behind on the beach as you are to take back and toss in your garage.Then there’s the kind that you can only seem to find in Galveston. The kind vendors lay out every morning in the summer and charge beach tourists to sit in.That’s the kind of beach chair Maceo grew up with as a child living on the island, he said.In high school, Maceo would be the one making a buck by setting the chairs up and breaking them down on the beach. After he got out of the Marines and returned to the island, he started his own vending company and claimed a patch of beach.Now, Maceo no longer wants to be the middleman and is taking his chairs to the people. Earlier this year, Maceo opened the East End Chair Co. in a small shop on Harborside Drive, across from the Uni-versity of Texas Medical Branch’s emergency room. There, with a small team of helpers, he puts together custom-made beach chairs by hand, a couple dozen at a time.“It’s quintessential Galveston,” he said, half yelling over an indus-trial fan that’s the only means of keeping Maceo’s shop cool. “These Adirondack chairs, these plastic chairs that you see everybody selling, they don’t have anything to do with Galveston. These chairs have been on the beach for 60, 70 years.”The wooden-and-mesh steamer chairs fold out, allowing for a leisurely time on the beach. It’s the style of chair that was featured on the Titanic, Maceo said. They’re made of white oak, which is best for water-proofing, he said. He selected the vinyl mesh material to stand up to the elements, he said.“Ain’t nothing sexier than this chair, it’s got good lines, good angles,” he said.Maceo learned to fix up old beach chairs after coming into posses-sion of dozens of them after Hurricane Ike flooded the city in 2008. Some local warehouses where beach vendors stored their equipment were flooded, and Maceo swooped in to buy and rehabilitate the chairs for his own service, he said.They were free, he said. It was an obvious opportunity.In fixing up those chairs, Maceo learned that only three companies supplied the parts needed to repair them, he said. Instead of buying Frank Maceo sits on a beach chair in his workshop on Galveston’s East End. Maceo makes colorful, clas-sic beach chairs for anyone who orders from him. COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018 9192 COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018Features(From top) Frank Maceo staples fabric onto a beach chair in his workshop in Galveston. Varnished pegs, which are used in the foundation of the chairs, are piled in Maceo’s workshop. An old rental sign hangs in the workshop. Maceo wanted to keep the classic style of chair that has been around Galveston for decades. COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018 93wholesale, he bought some wood-working equipment and started to make the pieces himself, he said.Eventually, he had enough pieces to make a whole chair.“I had a beer one night in my garage over on Ball Street,” he said. “I went over there, put a whole chair together, and boom, that was it.”He and a friend put together 100 chairs and they sold out quickly, he said. There was an ob-vious demand for them, he thought at the time.That was in 2011, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that Maceo opened the East End Chair Co. He came back to the business idea after a brief attempt at being an insurance agent and after years working on a tugboat in the Galveston Ship Channel. Maceo also served two years on the Galveston City Council as the representative for District 3, which includes the city’s port, downtown, the University of Texas Medical Branch and the island’s historic East End. Serving on the city council gave him the confidence to start his own business, he said.“I’m at a hell of a pivot point in my life getting off council,” Maceo said. “I can go a lot of different ways. With the network that I made during council, I’ve got more oppor-tunities than I really know what to do with right now.”Maceo’s family has a long business history on the island. Since arriving in the early 1900s, they’ve owned shrimp boats, restau-rants and a cabinet-making business, among other ventures.Maceo doesn’t know how long his busi-ness will last, he said. There’s still very much a transitory nature to it. He’ll make 50 at a time, sell them, and then start another 50. He’s got a positive feeling about the project though and a good pitch, he said.“They’re out there on the market, but nobody in Texas is making them,” he said. “As long as I’m making chairs, I’m selling chairs.” Frank Maceo’s beach chairs are set up under an umbrella on the beach near 24th Street in Galveston. 94 COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018Features‘It’s a reflection’Museum director believes the future is in our historyStory by Erin Graham Photo by Stuart VillanuevaJoan Marshall, director of The Bryan Museum in Galveston, grew up in Fort Worth, a great city for museums, she said.“I spent a lot of time visiting museums there, and I think that was what contributed to my interest in the arts,” Marshall said.Marshall started out her college career with an interest in music. She earned a scholarship to Texas Christian University to study as a percussionist. But she decided the life of a musician was too unstable, she said. She changed course and headed to the Uni-versity of Texas at Austin to study economics and history. She then earned a Master of Business Administration degree there.After college, she moved to Houston and worked in real estate and banking for a few years. Then, when she was in her late 20s, she had a heart-to-heart talk with her father, she said. She decided to quit her job and move to West Berlin, she said.“It was during the months I spent there that I decided I wanted to go back to grad school to study art history,” Marshall said. “I’ve never regretted my decision to follow my passion.”Her first job after graduating was at the National Endowment for the Arts in Wash-ington, D.C. From there, she held positions at the Bullock Texas State History Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles among others.She moved to Galveston earlier this year.Marshall was drawn to The Bryan Museum for three reasons: J.P. Bryan’s nationally recognized collection of 70,000 pieces of American West and Texas artifacts and be-cause she considers Bryan, a retired Houston COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018 95Joan Marshall is the new director of The Bryan Museum in Galveston. Marshall, who has worked at various museums from Austin to Los Angeles, moved to Galveston earlier this year.96 COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018Featuresoilman, to be a free thinker, she said.“J.P. was an art history major before he studied law and before he got into business,” Marshall said.The third reason is Galveston, she said.“Galveston is a microcosm of the Amer-ican West,” Marshall said. “It played a role in everything, from Cabeza de Vaca to Jean Laffite to the Texas Navy to the Civil War, and even immigration at Pelican Island.”Marshall’s ancestors came to Texas from Switzerland through Pelican Island, she said.She also believes Galveston has a tre-mendous opportunity for heritage tourism, she said. Heritage tourism is defined by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States as traveling to visit places, artifacts and activities that authentically rep-resent the stories of the past.Marshall has strong feelings about the im-portance of history’s role in society and she doesn’t believe museums are frilly, she said. Rather, she sees museums as central to the education system, she said.“Museums embody the things we value, and that’s why regimes often try to rewrite history — it represents shared values,” she said. “History is about rooting yourself in a community. It’s a reflection of the questions that help you focus on the future. Ameri-cans focus on the future, and we don’t think history is important to study. There needs to be a balance in liberal arts and technological studies. Liberal arts allow you to fully partici-pate in civic life.”Marshall’s goal for the museum is to raise its profile and draw more visitors. The collection is one of the finest of its kind in the country, and she wants people, whether they’re visiting the island to go on cruises, or from Houston and across the state, to see the collection, she said.“I feel transported by the objects in a museum, and I hope our visitors do, too,” she said. Joan Marshall works in her office at The Bryan Museum in Galveston. 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Jones wanted to find a dance partner, and so did Nelson. Neither one was looking for a serious relationship with all the headaches and complications, they said. But when Nelson picked her up at her home in La Grange for that first date, he melted, he said.“I thought, ‘I’m in trouble,’” he said.The date went well.“He’s the best dancer in the world,” Jones said.They got married in October 2015, bare-footed on the beach in Galveston.Writing together, they now weave history into romance and spirituality in their books, they said.This fall, they completed their latest book, tentatively titled “The Troves of Zac Love,” an epic history of a fictional Galveston family backed with research and personal insight.Jones, a retired teacher, has written four other books. When she met Nelson, a retired engineer, she was writing “The Last Madam: A Legend of the Texas Chicken Ranch,” a historical fiction based in part on research and interviews.Nelson, a retired engineer from Tomball, had written a collection of stories titled “Tall Tales Along Spring Creek.”Their first joint effort was the 2017 book “Billy Love: A Pebble in the Galveston Sand.” The story is part history and part personal growth, they said.“‘Billy Love’ is an encouraging story for se-niors who are alone and single,” Jones said. “Your last years don’t have to be a solitary, lonely existence.”Their own story shows up in the conversa-tions Billy Love has and in the technical details about the oil industry that Nelson knew well.The book became their life, their hobby and their passion, they said. They always talked about what Billy might do or what he might realize, Nelson said.“We would be in the pool, and I would say, ‘What do you think about this?’” Nelson said.In their island apartment overlooking Offatts Bayou, they worked in the same home office allowing their process to flow, they said. They research, then write. Nelson would write a section with technical details, then Jones would take it and add the narrative.The new book explores the adventures of Zac Love, Billy Love’s grandfather who survived the 1900 Storm — a hurricane that killed thousands on the island and beyond — and interacted with many notable Galves-ton families. The story involves survival, a search for Jean Laffite’s treasure and a look at the island’s relatively laid-back attitudes about race and class, they said.Jones and Nelson researched historical documents at Rosenberg Library and at the Galveston County Clerk’s office, they said. They talked to a lawyer, worked with an editor and will self-publish the new book in the coming months.Jones dreamed of Zac Love one night in September, she said. She isn’t ready to think about the next book while this one is still part of her, she said. And she and Nelson are still spreading the word about their earlier book, “Billy Love.”“It would be helpful to remind people we are spiritual beings having a human experi-ence,” Jones said. “We need to wake up to that.” COASTMONTHLY.COM / November 2018 99Galveston-based writers Joy Jones and James Nelson have co-written their second book together, which is scheduled to publish soon.Next >