Elsie the Cow, the “spokescow” for the Borden Company, is traveling once again to celebrate the company’s 150th anniversary this year. Elsie, a cartoon character that was brought to life during the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, has been portrayed by more than 50 cows over the years. She is also one of the top 10 icons in the United States. The first Elsie, born in Massachusetts and named You’ll Do Lobelia, lived at Walker Gordon Dairy in Plainsboro. The dairy was owned by Borden from 1929 to 1944, when the Jeffers family became the principal owners. Elsie died after a truck accident on Route 1 and there is a memorial to her in the Walker Gordon development.##M:[more]##
“The Birth of Elsie the Cow” will be presented by the Plainsboro Historical Society on Saturday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Plainsboro Municipal Building. Speakers include Bill Hart of Plainsboro, author of “Images of America: Plainsboro” and “The Lenape of Plainsboro” and president of the Plainsboro Historical Society; Leo Fenity of Cranbury, a lifelong collector of Elsie the Cow information and memorabilia; and Edith Perrine Sprague of Chesterfield, who traveled across the country with Elsie for four years. The talks include numerous collectibles and photos of Elsie. There will also be door prizes and refreshments. Admission is free.
Sprague was raised on a dairy farm in the Dutch Neck section of West Windsor on Village Road West, about a mile west of the Dutch Neck Church. When the power lines went up, they went through the property. Soon the trolley line went through the farm too. Where their farm was is all houses now. “The only thing still there is one tree,” she says.
Her father died when Edith was seven. When their mother remarried she and her sister, Anna, gained a stepfather, an older brother, and a younger sister.
She went to Dutch Neck School and graduated from Princeton High School. When she was a senior in high school she asked her parents not to insist that she go to college and they allowed her to stay. Although she was working on a “confidential wartime project” with Princeton University, she also worked with Pop, her stepfather, on the fields and milked the cows twice a day. They each had their own combine. “Farming is something that is in your blood,” she says. “I have always lived on a farm and I want to be carried off one.”
Her sister, Anna, was active in 4-H. “She had a bull and four cows and showed them all beautifully,” says Sprague.
Meanwhile, the Borden Company, which usually had boys accompanying Elsie, who had already participated in several successful war bond drives, had a manpower shortage in 1944 due to World War II. Walter Conover, who knew that they both had experience with tending cows and milking, recommended the Perrine girls to Henry Jeffers (at Walker Gordon) for the job. “My stepfather thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we should go,” she says. “We had a great relationship and I felt badly about leaving Pop on the farm alone.”
“I felt excited but apprehensive; I knew I would be homesick,” wrote Sprague in a 2001 letter to Plainsboro Township. “Our Pop was proud that his girls were helping with the war effort. Mother worried a lot.”
They soon began traveling with Elsie, and sometimes a calf called Beulah. Their first trip to Chicago included Elsie, Beulah, Elsie’s boudoir furniture, the walls and roof of her boudoir, straw, and two cots for the girls, in a freight car. Since they were earning money for the U.S., they were granted special permission to ride in the freight car with Elsie.
Although they did not call their parents from the road, Borden’s public relations man kept them up-to-date by phone. Edith made a pact with her sister, “If you write the letters I will do the laundry.” Most of their residential facilities were at YWCAs and laundry rooms were in the basement.
“Our early morning hours were spent milking and grooming Elsie,” she wrote in the letter. “We would brush her coat until it shined. We put colorless nail polish on her horns and black shoe polish on her hooves. We plaited the ends of her tail at night and combed it out in the morning for the display.” They then transported her to sites where her boudoir display was set up.
Their longest trip was to California and the Texas State Fair. “There was a heavy fog. The pilot had not gotten clearance to take off but he did anyway,” says Sprague. “I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when we took off.”
When they were in California they stayed at a hotel and were watched over by a retired gentleman. He put flowers in their room every day.
Some of their day trips included Teterboro Airport to wish “Bon Voyage” to calves that the U.S. government was sending to Greece, Halloran Veteran’s Hospital, Philadelphia Air Show, and an annual Christmas party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. “It was an amazing experience,” says Sprague.
When they were on a trip to Texas, Anna visited a ranch while Edith stayed with Elsie. They were offered a Brahma bull to take home. When they asked their father he told them that they could bring him home if he was healthy and had all of his shots. He did not want his animals to get sick. “He grew up to be a big one,” says Edith.
Anna went off to college in 1947, and worked for years in the business world, mostly in insurance. Also a widow, Anna Perrine Webber lives in Virginia.
Their friend, Betty Flock, a potato farmer from the area, replaced Anna on the tour. When Edith was later asked if she taught Flock how to milk a cow, she told her audience “I did not teach her to milk but I gave her the shovel.” Flock plans to be at the talk on October 6.
Their trips together included a home show in Albany. On a subsequent trip to the Florida State Fair in Tampa, they met celebrities including Ed Wynn, Pat Buttran, Hedda Hopper, Ginny Simms, Admiral Chester William Nimitz, Miss America of 1942, and Carmen Miranda.
“Elsie was a popular advertising icon and drew large crowds everywhere she went,” writes Sprague. “She was also a joy to take care of, and we had a great rapport.” Elsie’s travels during the war yielded more than $10 million in bonds.
Sprague has stories about her six years at Educational Testing Services. Although she only had a high school education and few math courses, she was hired to work in the math department. Her first typing experiences were on a math typewriter. One day she was typing the questions and answer choices when she realized that there was no right answer to the question. Since the copy was going right from her to the reproduction room she told her supervisor. Soon afterwards she was told that she was to train a new girl on the special typewriter as she was being promoted.
In 1948 she married Roy Sprague, a widower, whom she had met at a grange fair. She left ETS to take care of her stepdaughter. Her husband died nine years ago. Their five daughters, ranging from 42 to 62, now live in New Jersey, Florida, and Australia.
Sprague, now 83, has lived on a farm Chesterfield for many years. Although the family retired from farming many years ago, she still has several houses on the property. She has worked and volunteered in the Chesterfield School district for many years.
She continues to give presentations at schools and is a volunteer at the Chesterfield Township Elementary School, Chesterfield Baptist Church, and Chesterfield Township Municipal Alliance. The school dedicated a wing in her honor in 1999. Her presentations about farm life have helped girls appreciate the changes in farming and understand agriculture in Burlington County. She also teaches children about genealogy and area Native Americans, and includes a community history tour and visit to her farm. Burlington County Freeholders honored her as one of the Outstanding Women of Burlington County last year.
“Both Anna and I felt proud to have been a part of the war bond drive and proud to have been a part of the story of Elsie,” she writes. “Those four years were a very special time for both of us, and we will always remember the wonderful people and exciting places we got to know through Elsie, the Borden cow.” — Lynn Miller
Speaker Series, Plainsboro Historical Society, Plainsboro Municipal Building, 641 Plainsboro Road, 609-799-9040. www.plainsborohistory.com “The Birth of Elsie the Cow: A Plainsboro Story” presented by Bill Hart, Leo Fenity, and Edith Perrine Sprague. Elsie photos and collectibles will be on view. Free. Saturday, October 6, 7:30 p.m.
