One repair leads to a complete remodel at St. Elizabeth

It started with noticing that a few pews needed repair at St. Elizabeth Church, Port Neches. Then it became evident more repairs were needed than originally thought so it was more cost effective to replace them.
When the old carpeting was then inspected, the flooring really needed to be replaced as well.
As the baptismal font was moved for the new floor, it fell apart which resulted in a new one. This led to new artwork in the wall niche above it. A matching wall niche is on the other side of the altar – so, of course, new artwork was needed there as well.
Much of the repairs was completed for Oct. 9 when Bishop Curtis J Guillory, S.V.D., celebrated the Rite of Blessings in the remodeled church. He deposited a relic of St. Eugene I and blessed the new pews and choir organ.
As parishioners gathered for Mass, they saw the new artwork that has recently been placed. Paul Oliver, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception in Groves, built the new statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth of Hungary filling the wall niches.
The wall niches originally contained smaller statues when the church was first built in 1957. These were replaced in 1990 with two painted wood art pieces, one featuring the Holy Spirit and one featuring the chalice.
Father Baxter decided the new artwork should reflect the church’s namesake, St. Elizabeth of Hungary and contracted with Oliver.
Oliver said that his work has kept him busy and that he has been working seven days a week for the past seven months. The work demands attention to detail and requires a lot of patience.
“I’m not a volume shop,” he said.
This is not the first time Oliver has worked with a church in the Diocese of Beaumont.
Oliver did some of the repair work on St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica in Beaumont after Hurricane Rita. That is where he met Rolf Rohn, whose company has done design work for churches all over the country. Rohn did a lot of the design work on St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica.
Since Oliver began lending his expertise to churches, he has built a new altar table and tabernacle throne for the 200-year-old St. Patrick Cathedral in New York; the steeple for St. Paul in NASA Bay; the arches in Incarnate Word in San Antonio; and is now building massive 30-inch-wide stations of the cross for St. John Vianney Church in Houston. All this from someone who began by building fiberglass duck blinds, Mardi Gras floats and doing auto body repair.