FOLEY, Alabama — Cobwebs fall to a dusty floor as remodeling begins on a new Foley museum, to be housed in the old Claude Peteet Real Estate office. While a local painter with Boone Signs climbs a ladder with his brush and paint to take position atop the porch roof, his thoughts meander past font and spelling.

Scott Boone, third-generation sign painter at Boone Signs, takes on a job that his grandfather, Roy Boone, completed many years ago.

Marjorie Snook bought the building with the intention of restoring it and the historical contents of Claude Peteet Real Estate in order to make a museum for the community and visitors to enjoy. Part of the restoration process has been to repaint the building’s exterior along with the sign that once adorned the front.

Boone explained what happened after he accepted the job.

“She (Snook) asked me to make a pattern of the lettering that was on the front of the building, which had almost faded away completely,” he recalled. “When I told her that my grandfather had probably hand-lettered that, she asked if I would hand-letter it back to the original state, just as my grandfather had done nearly 70 years ago.

“I thought that would be an honor to walk in those footsteps of Roy Boone. While I was hand-lettering the front of Claude’s building that was in the middle of getting a facelift, I kept thinking about Roy doing this exact job so many years earlier. Foley was so different then. As I ride through Foley, I see many signs that Boone Signs has done, but the lettering on this building will always be special to me.”

Remodeler and Snook’s nephew, Tommy Smith, said he is happy with Boone’s work and with his carrying on a family tradition.

Boone explained that his father taught him the family trade that his father’s father taught him.

“I began helping my dad at the sign shop starting in the ninth grade in 1977 Saturdays and during the summer,” he explained. “From the tenth grade through graduation, I was helping him every day after school, Saturdays and during the summer break.

“Working side by side with your dad is an awesome experience, and trying at times. He taught me everything I know about the business, stressing to me that, ‘If you put out a good product, at a fair price, you will always stay busy.’ He also taught me the importance of treating the customer like a close friend and not just someone with a sign to order.”

He has tried to stay true to the origins of the business, along with technological advances, he divulged.

“In my opinion, the most difficult thing to learn has been hand=lettering signs. Not just anybody can do it,” he said. “I guess you have to have it in your blood.

“It takes a steady hand and a lot of patience. When my grandfather started Boone Signs in 1926, he hand-lettered all his signs. The sign industry’s major shift in production was in 1982, when a plotter hooked up to a computer could cut out different styles of copy from different colors of vinyl. Why spend all day hand-lettering a 4-by-8-foot sign, when using the computer plotter one could finish three signs? I haven’t hand-lettered a sign in more than 20 years.”

Though the task is difficult, he is happy to make an exception for this honor, he explained.

Smith said that Boone is not only repainting his grandfather’s sign, but also carrying on the work of his father, Earl Boone. He explained the appropriateness of so many memories coming together.

“This building was here when I was young," Smith said with a smile. “He (Peteet) had all these specimens of the area like alligator heads and fish in jars.”

Smith even recalled a large tortoise shell Peteet had wired and set by the front window. The eyes lit up red at night.

He remembers these items from his childhood, the same items that will be displayed in the museum upon the remodel completion.

Snook agreed that Boone was more than the perfect person for the project — he was the only person for it.

“I was thrilled when he (Boone) said he would do it because his granddaddy did the first one,” she explained. “He’s the third generation and I wish I could have known his grandfather.

“I think it was something for Scott to paint. We wouldn’t have gotten anyone else.”