< Previous70 COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 HOMEPORT Because of her background in the home furnishings industry, Sharon selected pieces created by friends or well-known designers. The huge Maitland Smith Penshell chandelier hanging in the dining room required electricians to install additional support beams in the ceiling before it could be hung. A heavy white selenite crystal vase holds a perpetually blooming orchid in the front room and a white rock crystal lamp anchors a corner table. A 30-year love of Japanese wood block prints dominate the walls. She has been collecting these 17th- and 18th-cen- tury prints for years, she said. Jim’s office is next to the sitting room, where their two dogs Chloe, a labradoodle, and Cosmo, a playful Havenese, like to hang out. The main piece of furniture besides the large desk is a slot machine that doesn’t let you win. Sharon, who grew up in Longview and lived in Houston during her adult life, has been visiting Galveston Island since she was a baby. Her parents would rent a room for a month at the Buccaneer Hotel when she was young, so returning to the island always was part of her life plan, she said. Since moving to the island, she has been active with the East End Historical District and is a member of the city’s Landmark Commission. “We really wanted an old house to redo, and this one is just what we wanted,” she said. (Clockwise from top right) Sharon Thompson has been collecting Japa- nese wood block prints for 30 years; Jim Thompson’s office features his collection of golf and sports-themed artwork and large slot machine; Cosmo, a Havenese, lounges on an ottoman near Jim’s office. COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 71 SCANFOR SCANFOR DISCOUNTED DISCOUNTED TICKETS! TICKETS! 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Most recently, three pairs of stained-glass balco- ny windows were restored and reinstalled in early June, an encouraging sign for Lesley Sommer, who heads up the church’s restoration task force. “We still have a lot of windows to do, so it’ll still be a long process for us for sure,” Sommer said. “But definite- ly this — it’s always good when you are able to get a big chunk done at a time.” Carried out by island-based McNatt Contracting, the ren- ovations at the church, 1903 Church St., actually began after Hurricane Ike in 2008 flooded the building for the first time since the 1900 Storm, swamping it with nearly 3 feet of water. “It was really a mess,” Sommer said. A gift of Mrs. George Ball, the vintage pipe organ also required serious attention, as did education and fellowship building McCullough Hall. (Above) Architect David Watson, left, and John McNatt, owner of McNatt Contracting, have worked to restore First Presbyterian Church in Galveston to its original grandeur. (Left) A Tiffany window is one of three in the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church.74 COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 FEATURE COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 75 Just restoring the windows, one at a time, has taken almost a decade, Sommer said. After being shipped to Stanton Studios in Waco, each window had to be taken apart — a complicated process because each panel consists of several layers of glass sand- wiched together — cleaned and reassem- bled. New, vented protective coverings re- placed ones made of Plexiglas, which caused the pieces of lead holding the glass in place to melt. Finally, the windows were installed in new frames, as the old ones had suffered the inevitable deterioration that stems from decades of rot, neglect and hungry termites. Almost all of the present windows were intact when First Presbyterian’s sanctuary — which, though still a skeleton at the time, managed to escape the devastating East End fire of 1885 — was dedicated in 1889. Three were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the prominent stained-glass artist also known for his work in lamps; the others from New York’s Lamb Studios, founded in 1857. “If you were a prominent church in the United States during the late 1800s, those were the two studios that you wanted to be doing your stained-glass windows, and we have both represented at First Presbyterian,” Galveston-based architect David Watson said. Watson’s firm specializes in historic res- torations and renovations and some of its other projects include Galveston Art Center, Garten Verein and the 1906 Texas Building on Market Street. “It’s actually just an incredible honor to be able to work on these buildings, and look at what went into them — the craftsmanship that went into them originally, and the effort that people today are taking to restore them and make sure that they last into the future,” Watson said. Although he didn’t design it, First Presby- terian marked a milestone in the career of Irish-born Nicholas Clayton, who supervised the church’s construction before going on to design Grace Episcopal Church, Ursuline Academy and several other prominent Gal- veston buildings. For Sommer, the link to the city’s historic past is always top of mind. “So many generations have been the stewards of that building in the past, and we’ve been gifted with that to take care of now,” he said. Work continues on the church’s exterior facade, which is being repainted to match its original color and restore a number of corbels Sommer believes were lost when the church was sandblasted in the 1950s. But the project now is far enough along that he’s comfortable finding a laugh or two along the way. “It’s really nice to see when we’re able to get some of these pieces completed and know that now it’s ready for the next hundred years, and a hundred years from now some- body else can worry about it,” he said. (Above) A stained-glass window, one of three by Louis Comfort Tiffany, at First Presbyterian Church has been restored and reinstalled with new frames and vented protective coverings on the exterior. (Opposite, clockwise from top) The sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church in Galveston has undergone extensive renovations; layers of stained glass give the illusion of depth in a Tiffany window; stained-glass windows in the balcony of the church recently were restored and reinstalled.76 COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 FEATURE LIGHTS OF LOVE Custom candle maker offers gifts in times of darkness story by CHRIS GRAY photos by STUART VILLANUEVA I slander Jack Williams struggles with an unenviable marketing dilemma. “Everybody associates me with death,” he said. Williams recently changed his company’s name from Cand-LED to LED Love Lights, hoping to high- light some of the other reasons people might order one of his custom-made candles from his Clear Lake-area storefront: births, graduations, weddings, quinceañeras, pet tributes and holidays. “We wrap mugs, we wrap wine bottles, beer bottles — we wrap everything,” Williams said. Memorials he’s got covered: Williams’ specialty is mak- ing candles to honor the victims of mass shootings. By his reckoning, Williams has made some 700 candles to honor victims of gun violence, dating back to the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University. After Sandy Hook in 2012, he worked all night, “crying my eyes out,” to get the candles overnighted to Connecticut by Christmas Eve. Williams often travels to distribute his candles in person; the only time he has been turned away was after the October 2017 Manda- lay Bay Hotel shooting in Las Vegas. The reason? “They just didn’t want that bad publicity.” About eight and a half months later, the shooting was much closer to home. It was his alma mater, Santa Fe High School, where on May 18, 2018, 10 people were killed and 13 others were wounded by a gunman. That was a tough one. Driving from Galveston to the Clear Lake area, all he needed to hear were the words “Santa Fe” on the radio. “I got over there and saw all the police cars and I knew at that moment,” he said. Williams’ candles actually are closer to lanterns; no wax or flame is involved. His thermal printers can reproduce images at 2,600 dots per inch, up from 300 dpi when he started. He switched to plastic when the price of glass got too high, and lately has been adding QR codes — scan the candle and a song comes up. When a big job comes through, he COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 77 Jack Williams, owner of DPI Printing, displays memorial candle holders at his shop in the Clear Lake area.78 COASTMONTHLY.COM | SepTeMber 2022 FEATURE enlists some veterans he knows, paying $15 an hour because he finds Texas’ minimum wage “disrespectful.” The candles retail for $35; custom back- grounds are $2 extra. Originally, Williams want- ed to be an architect like his father, but a summer job at a sign company put him on a different path. A few years later, he bought that company and, after a judiciously placed job in Houston’s downtown tunnel system, landed an auspicious client: the federal government, which wanted him to decorate the stage at a memorial cere- mony for the astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. On Jan. 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the death of all seven crew members, as the first fatal accident involving an American spacecraft in flight. That led to a gig doing signs for George H.W. Bush’s inaugu- ral ball, and so on. Williams also worked for Walmart for eight years, learn- ing to “make it affordable, make it fast, and your money will roll.” Williams isn’t overly philosophical about what drives him to make the candles, and especially to give them away, which he’s trying to cut back on, except that his parents al- ways told him “it’s better to give than receive,” he said. He once second-guessed their generosity, but not anymore. “In a weird way, it was like my therapy,” Williams said. “Whenever I was doing it and giving candles away, I felt closer to them. I know that they would want me to do it. And then I just got into it.” Recently, Williams spent several days in Uvalde, doing what he could to help ease the sorrows brought on by the Robb Elementary shooting. The outpouring of support for the victims’ families was overwhelming, he said. In such situations, Williams used to pray for the fallen until he realized “nobody can ever hurt them again.” Now he fo- cuses on those left behind. He gives out candles to help them turn a corner, he said. “I’m the guy that builds the light and lights up such a dark time,” he said. Jack Williams, owner of DPI Printing, holds a Galveston-themed lantern. Williams’ company wraps everything from mugs to wine bottles. We have a wide range of competitive personal and business banking services. 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