Restoring the history of Hawaii one page at a time

VENICE — Almost a year after the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history leveled the beachtown of Lahaina, Hawaii, residents are still reeling from the death and destruction erasing what many had called home for generations.

The Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church was one of the unlucky structures to burn down in Lahaina, with only its rooftop cross and a safe surviving the flames on Aug. 11.

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 moved to Europe to learn his trade through internships and intense mentorships for almost a decade before becoming Head of Conservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1977. After retiring 10 years ago, Mowery opened a private practice to continue serving clients worldwide.

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.

The Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii’s Canon to the Ordinary — assistant to the Bishop — Father Alexander Graham said the restoration of the surviving documents will give the people of Lahaina a part of their history back.

“There are many wonderful and amazing stories about people saving each other, but amongst the preservationists, they are often calling this the miracle of Lahaina,” he said. “These records are full of stories and history, so we were committed to restoring them as soon as we found them.”

Graham said the wildfires left high levels of toxic ash, leaving many residents unable to reach their homes to forage what was left.

But that didn’t stop the people of Lahaina.

Parishioners volunteered to suit up in multiple layers of protective equipment to sift through the wreckage, discovering the safe of records among the rubble.

The Diocese of Hawaii quickly got to work, appointing Graham to recover the documents and remove them from further toxic damage.

“I visited the site once a week, and I had to wear two sets of gloves, two masks and a suit to pick up the documents, where I double bagged them and boxed them to be sent to some preservationists by our headquarters in Honolulu,” Graham said.

The documents — including handwritten record books of baptisms, marriages and accounting sheets — survived the fires after the safe was flipped face down in the dirt, but still suffered severe damage due to heat from the fire and water from a firefighter’s hose seeping through the safe’s cracks.

While the contents were placed in plastic folders by the church before the fires as a safeguard against deterioration, Mowery said, the plastic could not keep the pages from water damage, heat exposure and sticking together.

“I can imagine the safe rolled over on its side, so everything that was wet mushed and fell over, with the safe door face down in the dirt that helped all this stuff survive,” Mowery said. “This will still be quite a job to get everything separated.”

While the job could take months to complete, the book binding specialist said he plans to bring the pages back to life.

“Conservation is the preservation of keeping something from deteriorating further,” Mowery said. “Restoration is a combination of conservation but trying to make it as close to its original condition as possible, which is what I intend to do with these pages.”

Restoring History

Mowery received two 150-year-old record books earlier this month, containing oil-based and lead-based handwritten notes on handmade paper — constructed from cotton and linen — and loose leaf.

Mowery said the first material bears a stronger thickness compared to loose leaf or even cardstock, aiding him in maintaining the durability during the treatment process.

The ink has proven to be a bit more challenging.

Iron gall ink, which Mowery said was widely used for manuscripts in the Western world from around 400 CE to the late nineteenth century, is an acidic-based mixture that can cause paper to disintegrate.

“A lot of these documents are really old and would have been fragile anyway because of the kind of ink that was written on them,” Mowery said.

But the conservationist said the writing material will wash the same as graphite and looseleaf, where chemicals are extracted and the paper is calcified to increase durability.

The cleaning process includes a solution-based “bath,” where 150 years of dirt, dust and stains are washed off the pages and the pH levels are restored in the material.

The documents are placed in a washing sleeve, composed of Mylar plastic and a couple layers of polytex.

The sleeve is then placed in a tray of deionized and recalcified water to soak, washing all the chemicals out of the paper while brightening and straightening each page out.

“I can treat a piece of tissue paper, Kleenex, TP paper if needed, as the washing sleeves will support and protect even the most fragile papers,” Mowery said.

Depending on the severity of the damage, some of the Lahaina documents might take several baths to remove most of the yellow tinge caused by oxidation, similar to washing stained clothes, Mowery said.

“Acids that are making the paper brittle and fall apart can be washed out,” he said. “For these documents, it took a couple baths to wash out everything.”

After a few washes, the documents are hung up to dry clothesline-style before reconstruction can begin.

Though most would assume the job requires precautions like gloves and a mask, Mowery said it’s quite the opposite.

In order to understand the material he’s working with, the conservationist said working with clean, bare hands helps decipher how to handle and restore the pages.

“With a pair of white gloves, it would be very difficult to handle this safely,” Mowery said. “The gloves offer you no sensitivity with brittle pages like these.”

To fix some pages splitting due to age and heat damage from the fire, Mowery uses a Japanese-based material called Gossamer Tissue, a very thin material invented by the conservationist that offers minimal obscurity of writing on the page.

Mowery also uses tools including magnifying processors, a high-powered, digitally-linked microscope and various presses used to straighten out and tighten the fibers of pages with applied pressure.

The Venice facility also has a “stealth sucker,” an innovative tool Mowery invented to keep a page in place by creating a vacuum-like suction on the page’s edges.

When needing to remove an accidental ink smudge, the tool keeps it from bleeding when Mowery adds a solution like acetone to remove it.

The Cost of Restoring History

So far, Mowery has already repaired two sheets of documents from the books of files, which will act as models for how he plans to complete the rest.

If the church chooses to accept Mowery’s proposal and service fees, 17 more books will follow.

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.”

Mowery said the church is looking to apply for a disaster recovery grant after having to commit their current funds to the rebuilding of their church, parish hall, preschool and rectory that were lost to the fire.

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.

While some can guess this kind of work to be tedious, Mowery said the process does have its perks.

The conservationist shared his excitement at the possibility of some pages including information regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which the church might note in some of their record books.

“I love working with the history of this stuff,” Mowery said. “You’re sometimes touching things that are thousands of years old.”

The conservationist has travelled the world for his restoration projects, working with royals like Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. officials President Bill Clinton and Sanda Day O’Connor to preserve first world maps and Declaration of Independence documents.

The conservationist’s oldest historical piece he restored was a page from a 2,624-year-old manuscript recycled and used as part of a religious book’s binding created in 1507.

“50 years ago is brand new for me,” Mowery said. “Anything after 1900 is on the cusp of ‘old.’”

Though the Lahaina documents are not the oldest or most valuable thing Mowery has restored in his proficient career, the conservationist said the history he gets to hold is the true treasure.

“It connects you with the past, these things, the people who were there,” he said.

Those interested in donating to the Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church disaster relief fund can visit episcopalhawaii.org/maui-relief.html.