United: Child cover model shares her 'calling' to spread patriotism with daughter and granddaughter

Last Modified:
12:35 p.m. 12/17/2001

By Andrea Albright
The Capital-Journal

 

Randi Dale, 62, appeared in an Uncle Sam costume on the cover of Popular Photography magazine in 1944 as part of an effort to encourage Americans to buy bonds in support of World War II. Submitted

A Manhattan woman, who plugged war bonds as a child more than 57 years ago, is back at the job promoting Patriot Bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury Department beginning Tuesday.

Randi Dale, 62, appeared in an Uncle Sam costume on the cover of Popular Photography magazine in 1944 as part of an effort to encourage Americans to buy bonds in support of World War II. Today, Dale will don her costume again and accompany her daughter and granddaughter to try to accomplish the same feat.

"We need to motivate our country in support of this cause," Dale said Wednesday. "We want to unite the country and fight against terrorism."

The U.S. Treasury last week unveiled a series of savings bonds exactly three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. The bonds, which will be available in denominations from $50 to $10,000, will contribute to the federal government's overall effort to fight the war on global terrorism.

Dale said much like the effort during World War II, the government today is attempting to unify the country by giving Americans a chance to contribute.

"They wanted to unite the country in a cause," she said. "They are trying to get the country involved in supporting the troops."

As a child model in New York, Dale said she was used to posing for advertisements and magazines in the 1940s. For the most part, she said, memories of her modeling days were mostly fed by stories told by her mother.

However, she said, the Uncle Sam shoot was special in some ways because she could recollect seeing her picture all over New York's Union Station as she walked through it with her parents.

 

Randi Dale Submitted

After her family moved to Wichita, she remembered her father blacking out his headlights and air raid drills that were periodically practiced. Memories of the war effort have inspired Dale to consider writing a book.

"I have always been interested in the history of the home front in World War II," she said. "Because I was part of the past as a child, I have been interested in that era as an adult."

After Sept. 11, a series of events inspired Dale and her daughter to promote patriotism and find their own way to help. When the bonds were issued last week, the women knew they had found their calling.

Referring to themselves as "The Freedom Girls," Randi Dale; her daughter, Susan Dale; and granddaughter, Anastasia Richardson, will appear in Uncle Sam costumes today at a Tulsa, Okla., shopping center to promote the new Patriot Bonds.

"This is the first of many things we're going to do," Susan Dale said from her Tulsa dance shop Thursday. "The idea is to spread the word of patriotism."

Susan Dale said buying the bonds had a two-fold positive effect.

First, the money would support rebuilding efforts while contributing to the war effort. Second, the money is another way to boost the nation's economy.

The women said they hoped that other communities would contact the trio to make appearance in support of the war effort. Susan Dale said the greatest goal is to keep spirits up across America and support troops fighting in Afghanistan.

"We have to keep our patriotism up as long as we can," she said. "Until Sept. 11, we had forgotten what patriotism was all about. We got a wake up call."

Andrea Albright can be reached at

(785) 295-1208 or aalbright@cjonline.com.