The Woman on the Cavalier China Sign

When you're a kid, you see a lot of things from the vantage point of the back seat of the family car. 

If you grew up in Lorain County, there were a lot of unusual things to gawk while driving past the city parks: giant Easter baskets; a steam locomotive in Oakwood Park; a huge letter V with a statue of a sword-wielding angel nearby; a fountain that changed colors. But most of these (except for the train) are still around today.

And then there were the commercial signs that indeed are no more: the old-style McDonald's sign with the walking Speedee mascot down at the restaurant that was located on West Erie near Leavitt Road; the animated bowling sign for Broadway Lanes on the back of the Broadway Building; the sign for Oakwood Shopping Center on Route 254 with Pearl the Squirrel (clutching her purse) advising you to "Shop at the Sign of the Thrifty Squirrel; the women's heads on the front of the Northern Institute of Cosmetology building.

Add to this list the sign for Cavalier China out on Route 6 (Liberty Avenue) in Vermilion. When I moved to Vermilion in 2018, memories of this sign on the store building (with a woman gesturing as if to say, "Pssst, look at this!") were rekindled – and I wished that I could see a photo of it.

Well, I no longer have to wish – I scrounged up a photo of it just a few nights ago while using the Lorain Public Library's online Journal archives. Here it is, from the pages of the May 1, 1965 Journal, accompanying an article about the store's move from Lorain to Vermilion.

Here's a closer look.

I guess my memory isn't too bad. On a previous post about Cavalier China, I mentioned that I remember her looking something like this (below).