Reinhold W. (Ray) Erickson (see video) had an unusual dream. He wanted to light up the church steeples of Cleveland that can be seen from Interstate 71. Erickson wasn’t particularly religious, according to his attorney. He simply found the spires charming and thought it was a shame they couldn’t be enjoyed at night.

A dentist who practiced in East Cleveland, Ohio, for 40 years after his graduation from the dental school of Western Reserve University, Erickson died without kin in 1992 at the age of 87. Counting on the Cleveland Foundation to help him realize his dream, he directed that income from his life savings of $370,000 should first be used to illuminate as many of the 21 towers visible from the interstate as possible. (Thereafter, the monies were to be used to advance health education.) The Cleveland Foundation honored the last wishes of this quiet-living retiree, establishing the Reinhold W. Erickson Fund in 1993 to pay for the lighting and installation costs. The Cleveland Restoration Society oversaw the work.

The imposing Romanesque spire of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Tremont became the first “Beacon of Hope,” as the lighting program was named. To date, 17 churches have received Erickson’s gift of light, ranging from Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (the downtown Cleveland home of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio) to Tremont’s Zion United Church of Christ, founded by German immigrants in 1867.