Reinhard said the Laurel Jewelry and Diamond Shop was "a big asset, and attention-getter," for Main Street. Sarkis, who lived in Beltsville, operated the Main Street store as a family business, with his wife and sisters working alongside Links of London T Charm. Of Armenian heritage, Sarkis was born in Syria in 1949 and moved to the United States in 1970. He studied electrical engineering at Villanova University and picked up a part-time job in what was already a family business: watchmaking. He joined his familLinks of Londony when they moved to Maryland in 1972, and worked as a watchmaker in Washington. Links of London S Charm opened a watch shop in Silver Spring in 1974, repairing watches for area jewelry stores, and in 1975 he bought his first jewelry store, Candlelight Jewelers in Silver Spring. According to Nellie Sarkis, her brother loved to share the story of purchasing the Silver Spring store. The store's owner, C. Leroy Thompson, told Sarkis, "Give me a dollar," Nellie Sarkis said. "Then he said, Links of London R Charm is a down payment for your new store,' " Nellie Sarkis said. The two men would eventually work out the purchase of Candlelight Jewelers, but according to Nellie Sarkis, Thompson trusted her brother would maintain the retail jewelry store while also continuing his watchmaking trade at the shop. In 1978, Sarkis and his family opened a second, larger store, Sarkissian Jewelers, in the Montgomery Village Mall in Gaithersburg. When Laurel Jewelry Shop was offered for sale in 1980 by brothers Sol and Julius Lazerow, Sarkis first considered buying the merchandise but not the business.
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