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-One of
my favorite sections
of the Sunday
Seattle Times is the Pacific Northwest magazine
because it includes intimate stories
about local people and local places.
Case in point is the January 26th edition,
which featured a terrific article on Bea Haverfield,
the designer behind many of Seattle's iconic neon signs.
And here to talk about Bea and her signs is the writer,
author, historian and collector Brad Holden.
Hi, Brad. -Hi.
-Welcome to the show.
-Thank you for having me.
-All right.
So so Bea Haverfield, called “Seattle's Queen of Neon,”
in your article
is responsible for really some of the best
signage in the city.
And yet I had never heard of her.
So let's start there.
Who is Bea Haverfield and how did you find this story?
-Sure.
Well, let me start out by talking
about how I discovered her,
cause that basically leads into who she is.
So as a hobby, I'm a picker like the show
“American Pickers.”
I like to go out and find old antique things.
Specifically, I like to
find objects and artifacts from local history.
Anything historically significant
or that has a good story behind it.
And then what I typically do is I find this stuff,
bring it home, research it.
And then I post it on my Instagram
page, Seattle Artifacts.
So about four or five months ago,
I found an old menu for an old burger joint,
I think was from the ‘50s.
So I brought it home
and I researched it as I do, and as I was researching
and I found some obscure reference
to this lady named Bea
Haverfield, who back in the ‘40s
and ‘50s here in Seattle, designed
some of the city's most iconic signs.
And so I was instantly intrigued
because I'd never heard of her before.
Like you were saying, I never heard of her before,
and I'm pretty up on my local history.
-Yeah, that's pretty amazing. If you hadn't heard of her.
-Yeah. Yeah. So
at that moment, my focus shifted.
I wanted to find out more about her.
So I started research and I figured
surely there must be a magazine
or newspaper article written about her
if she designed all these signs.
But there was nothing. There was nothing out there
about her. -Wow
-The best thing I could find is there was a blog about
kind of the local art scene,
and it was talking about a local artist named Eli Wolff.
And in this piece about him,
it mentioned that his grandmother was
this Bea Haverfield lady who designed all these signs.
So I reached out to him on social media on Instagram.
He got back to me and said,
I'd love to talk to you,
but if you really want some good information,
you should probably talk to my mother Kathleen.
-So Bea’s daughter...? -Bea’s daughter.
Yeah, exactly.
So I emailed her
and she was thrilled that somebody was finally
taking an interest in the story of her mom.
So she was very receptive.
And in fact, she invited me up to her
house. She said, “We should probably
just meet in person and I can go over it.
And in fact, I have a lot of her original sketches.
If you're interested in seeing it.”
And I was like... -“Of course, of course I am!”
-Yeah, sign me up. This is the stuff I live for.
So I went up there on a
on a weekend, I think it was a Saturday,
and I spent the
entire afternoon at her house and she pulled out these
big cardboard binders full of these sketches of Bea’s.
And we just spent the afternoon going through ‘em.
And I think it was
kind of an emotional, cathartic moment for her
because these were
basically time capsules that had just
been stored away for decades.
And so all these memories
were starting
to kind of flood back
as she was going through these sketches,
which were just amazing. My mind was just blown.
I mean, they were just not only historically
significant, but artistically, too.
They were just true works of art, in my opinion.
And I'm also hearing stories about her mom
as she's going through these sketches.
And I'm just thinking
to myself, you know, this is amazing.
This is the story really needs to get out there.
People need to know who this lady was.
So that night I went home and I had taken a bunch
of photos of her sketches.
And so I posted them on my Instagram account
and it just blew up. -Wow.
-I've been doing it for years,
and this was the most like most commented on post.
It got everybody going.
And that's when I knew, like, okay, it's not just me
that thinks this story's cool. Other people do too.
-We got to get this. -We got to get this out.
And that's what led me to write
the story for Pacific Northwest magazine.
-Right. Well, so how did Bea get her start in in sign design?
I mean, did she have a background in design?
-No formal training.
So basically, she
she was just one of those people
that was just born very artistically gifted.
In high school,
she met a boy by the name of Elden Fisler,
and he was also an artsy kind of guy.
And they started dating after high school
they married and they kind of combined their artistic
talents together and started a sign business.
-Right, right.
-And I think that's where she got her training.
She just kind of learned from the ground up
how to, you know, design elements
and how to put together a good sign...
-She designed and he would fabricate them? Is that how it worked?
-I think early on they were both designing.
And then at some point he was the one
who was making the signs and she was the designer.
And then World War II hit. -Right.
-And he went off in the Navy to go fight the war.
And she got a job at Boeing.
-She became a Rosie the Riveter.
Yeah.
She was working making airplane parts for the war.
-So the sign business went aside.
-They went aside. Yep.
-And then in 1945, the the war ends.
And that is really when Bea’s,
career, or really prolific
all of her great signs that we know really happened.
So tell us about that. -Yeah.
So after the war,
they resume their sign business
and then at some point,
I don't know the exact details
and the family really doesn't know either.
But it sounds like there was
a much larger sign company known as Campbell Neon.
There were a few local sign companies here,
but they were one of the big fish.
And I think what happened is they bought out
Bea and Elden’s sign business and said,
“Why don't you guys come work for us?”
They could probably recognize they were talented,
so they brought them on board.
And Bea at that point became Campbell Neon's,
one of their lead designers.
There weren't a lot of women
doing what
she was doing. -Right. -Which makes the story
all that much more remarkable. -Right.
-And obviously
she did great
because the signs we still know about today,
I'm sure we are talking about. -They're incredible.
-Yeah.
-Are any of her really
early signs around still like literally out in the world?
-Well... -Early career signs?
-Yeah. Yeah.
So she designed Ivar’s first sign on the waterfront
and that opened in the 1940s.
I think that was one of the first big signs.
And as far as I know, that one still exists.
I don't know if they've replaced it.
So if that one is the original sign or if it's
been since replaced,
But she was the original designer of that sign.
-Right, right. -And in fact, it's in her handwriting.
-Right. Right.
-The kind of cursive script. Same with the Dick’s sign.
-Right. Right.
Which I want to talk about that. Like the details of her
signs, the beautiful details like the
the elephants, the little elephants.
-Yeah. -In the Elephant Car Wash sign.
Tell me about those.
-There's four sheet metal elephants
at the base of the sign.
They're very cartoony looking. -Yeah.
-And they were for her four children.
She had two daughters and two sons. -That’s so great.
-And, you know,
at that point in her career,
I think she had enough confidence where
I'm going to add this. -Yeah, right.
And it's gonna work.
-And it's going to work.
-Absolutely. -And it did. -Yeah. Yeah.
You know her, her designs, they strike me,
They're effective signage business wise.
-Sure. -Very artistically pleasing.
So let's talk about all those elements.
What do you think made her signs
kind of so evocative?
-You know,
I think a lot of advertising during that period had a
it was really kitschy.
It had very kitschy factor.
And I think she embraced that.
And you see that.
And I think it makes her signs kind of endearing.
-And then her scripting, I mean, her like you said
when with Ivars, that was her script.
And her script was also for the
for Dick's drive it, correct? -Yeah.
-Just a little flourish is a little it's just the details
just really stand out.
-I think that's what makes the sign so iconic.
-Right, right.
Yeah, right.
Well,
so for people who grew up here or have lived here
a long time, you and I, both from the area,
Bea’s signs, they have an emotional resonance.
They are Seattle. I think, you know.
So is it possible to quantify kind of the effect
that that signage has had or has on our communal
quality of life?
-Yeah, definitely.
You know, I think it's
a large part of Seattle's metropolitan identity
when when they show
pictures of Seattle, you know,
you see pictures of the Space Needle,
but you also see a lot of these signs.
You'll see the Elephant Car Wash signs,
you see the Dick’s sign, and it's just become kind of
the urban landscape here, these signs.
And they've survived over decades now.
-Yeah. -And they're still very iconic
-And they make you feel good -And they make you feel good.
-Yeah, it makes me very happy to see those signs. -Me too.
-Makes me very happy to go to Dick's Drive-In
and get a hamburger as well.
-Amen, a Dick's deluxe.
-Dick’s deluxe, I'm a special. -Oh, you're a special.
Okay. -And fries and a chocolate shake.
-You got to have the fries. -You gotta have the fries.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much
for coming in and talking with us.
And I thank you so much for writing that article,
because it really it caught my attention immediately.
-Thank you.
-So a link to Brad's a Seattle Times
article on Bea Haverfield is on our website,
and an exhibit of these original sketches will open
next fall at Edmonds Historical Museum.
Also pick up Brad's latest book, “Seattle Prohibition
Bootleggers, Rum Runners and Graft and the Queen City”
in bookstores and online and follow Brad on Instagram
Under the name seattle_artifacts.
Well, thank you and cheers to the Queen of Neon.
-Cheers.
-Bea Haverfield. -Bea Haverfield. -Yeah.
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