The following are excerpts from an article "Restoring the history of Hawaii one page at a time" that appeared in The Daily Sun, April 17, 2024, along with Mowery's photo shown at left:
After hearing of the safe's contents, one Venice-based book and paper conservationist has vowed to restore the faith in the Lahaina people one piece of history at a time.
Frank Mowery, who has worked with book and paper restoration for more than 50 years, was contacted by the church to restore historical record books dating back to 1873. Mowery had previously worked with an archivist at Holy Innocents a year prior to rebind a book from the church library that was falling apart. After the wildfires, the church reached out to the conservationist again in the hopes Mowery could work his restoration magic once more.
Each record book’s restoration has been priced at about $5,000 a piece, totaling almost $100,000. Mowery said most of the fee pays for the materials needed to complete the project.
“The material used to line the back of pages and strengthen them is 17 bucks a page without the cost of my work involved,” Mowery said. “It’s custom-made in Pennsylvania and sold through a Japanese company in California.”
If enough funds are raised, the entire book restoration will take months to complete, Mowery said, due to many stuck pages and some plastic covers holding multiple pages of text.
After hearing of the safe's contents, one Venice-based book and paper conservationist has vowed to restore the faith in the Lahaina people one piece of history at a time.
Frank Mowery, who has worked with book and paper restoration for more than 50 years, was contacted by the church to restore historical record books dating back to 1873. Mowery had previously worked with an archivist at Holy Innocents a year prior to rebind a book from the church library that was falling apart. After the wildfires, the church reached out to the conservationist again in the hopes Mowery could work his restoration magic once more.
Each record book’s restoration has been priced at about $5,000 a piece, totaling almost $100,000. Mowery said most of the fee pays for the materials needed to complete the project.
“The material used to line the back of pages and strengthen them is 17 bucks a page without the cost of my work involved,” Mowery said. “It’s custom-made in Pennsylvania and sold through a Japanese company in California.”
If enough funds are raised, the entire book restoration will take months to complete, Mowery said, due to many stuck pages and some plastic covers holding multiple pages of text.
