Skip to content
  • Home
  • Geezers Roll Call
  • Not Forgotten
  • Gatherings
  • Contact

Geezers’ Gallery

San Francisco's Golden Age of Advertising and the people who created it.

  • Home
    • Privacy Policy
  • Pages
    • Geezers Roll Call
    • Not Forgotten
  • Who was Where
    • Agencies
    • Copywriters
    • Photographic
    • Reps
    • Staff Creatives
    • Studios & Freelancers
    • Publications
  • Gatherings
    • Gathering 2024
    • Gathering 2022
    • Gathering 2021
    • Gathering 2020
    • Gathering 2019
    • Gathering 2018
    • Gathering 2017
    • Gathering 2016
    • Gathering 2015
    • Gathering 2014
    • Gathering 2013
    • Gathering 2012
    • Gathering 2011
    • Gathering 2010
    • Gathering 2009
    • Gathering 2008
    • Gathering 2007
    • Gathering 2006
    • Gathering 2005
    • Gathering 2004
    • Gathering 2003
    • Gathering 2002
    • Gathering 2001
    • Gathering 2000
    • Gathering 1999
    • Gathering 1993
  • Contact Us

“Elsie the Cow” Flew 63 Missions in WWII !

Posted on August 11, 2025August 12, 2025 By Hey You

David W. Reid was creative director working directly with Borden’s in New York. His client was Borden’s dairy and ​“Elsie” the cow was ​‘born’ at that time.
When David was drafted into the US Air Force, he was told he would get out after adding up ​“points”. The Borden Company also promised his job back.
Around the world Elsie was being used as a good luck charm by airmen, soldiers and sailors.
Before the war ended, Elsie helped to sell $10,000,000 worth of War Bonds and Stamps. They raised nearly $500,000 for charity. This money was sent to war victims and hospi­tals in foreign countries.

The Milk Run
The Milk Run 
Milk Run
Milk Run 
Martin
Martin 

David painted ​“Elsie” on his plane, a B‑25 Mitchell, (or a B‑26 Martin). After each mission, he painted a new milk bottle on the plane — -“The Milk Run

Air Medal with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster
Air Medal with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster 
Purple Heart
Purple Heart 
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distin­guished Flying Cross 

He flew 63 missions! He was shot down. He received the Distin­guished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart and the Air Medal with Eleven Oak Leaf Clusters.

Back on Madison Ave., David continued the promo­tion of Borden’s prod­ucts. During that time, David Reid had the oppor­tu­nity of a three hour lunch, with Martinis, and the chal­lenge of the water tower on the roof of Borden’s location.

The following is a report from February 11, 1982 in the ​‘North Country Journal’ — with addi­tional photos.
(Cover artist: John Hunt of Petaluma, CA.)

Elsie… A Local Fami­ly’s Tradition
by Lynn Ostling

Think of a national corpo­ra­tion iden­ti­fied with an animal symbol, not just any animal, but a very person­able, indi­vid­u­al­ized, attrac­tive animal. Chances are your thoughts will turn rather quickly to Elsie, the Borden Cow, one of the most enduring adver­tising symbols of our time.

Elsie’s contin­uing level of recog­ni­tion is all the more remark­able when we consider that Borden milk prod­ucts have not been sold under that name in the western states since Knudsen bought out Borden over a decade ago. Even in the ​‘east Borden does not use Elsie’s famous ​“daisy” logo except on milk and ice cream: the Borden Company chose twenty years ago to adopt a more” abstract” corpo­rate logo, to present an image of itself as much more than just a dairy company. But Elsie’s image lives on. She was a cow with real personality.

What does Elsie the Cow have to do with Design Lab, a sleekly modern shop dispensing adver­tising and pack­aging art from an office in down­town Petaluma’s classic McNear building? Design Lab is oper­ated by Dewey Reid and Richard Moore, with a certain amount of advice from ​“creative director” David Reid, Dewey’s father and Richard’s father: in-law. No one knows more about Elsie than David Reid. He prac­ti­cally invented her for the Borden Company 42 years ago. (Note:This written in 1982.)

David Reid
David Reid 
Elsie Evolved
Elsie Evolved 
Elsie 194
Elsie 194 

The cartoon Elsie was created in 1936 by a team headed by adver­tising creative director David William Reid. Elsie first appeared as one of four cartoon cows (with Mrs. Blossom, Bessie, and Clara) in a 1936 maga­zine adver­tise­ment series featured in medical jour­nals. By 1939, she was featured in her own adver­tise­ment campaign that was voted ​“best of the year” by the Jury of the 1939 Annual Adver­tising Awards. Named one of the Top 10 Adver­tising Icons of the [20th] Century by ​‘Adver­tising Age’ in 2000,[2] Elsie the Cow has been among the most recog­niz­able product logos in the United States and Canada. (From Wikipedia)

It’s true, David admits, that Elsie did exist in a rather rudi­men­tary form, as a sort of cartoon cow in some early Borden phar­ma­ceu­tical ads, when he joined the company in 1939. But it was under his guid­ance that Elsie burgeoned into the sweetly femi­nine personage we remember. David himself designed and drew the logo with Elsie’s face smiling from the center of a golden daisy.

“It all really took off at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939 – 40.” David recalls. ​“Elsie had just begun to be popular. We really knew we had some­thing when we heard how often people came into the Borden dairy barn where the cows were being milked and asked, ​“Which cow’s Elsie?”,

Elsie in World's Fair Boudoir
Elsie in World’s Fair Boudoir 
At the NY World Fair
At the NY World Fair 
Borden Ad in Life Magazine 19
Borden Ad in Life Maga­zine 19 

Seizing this perfect public rela­tions oppor­tu­nity, Reid and his colleagues in Borden’s adver­tising depart­ment chose a beau­tiful live pure­bred Jersey named You’ll Do Lobelia, re-christened her Elsie, and put her in a lavish ​“boudoir” complete with four-poster stall, portraits of her family, book­case, dressing table, and four little round white leather ​“shoes” by the side of the ​“bed.” ·
​“We had more visi­tors than Genera! Motors”, David remem­bers. Elsie was the hit of the Fair.

Photo at the Reid Design Lab, above McNear’s Mystic Theatre

Now, as David looks back on an exciting and successful career in adver­tising art, his son Dewey looks forward to a similar career. Dewey’s office at Design Lab is sprin­kled with Elsie memo­ra­bilia, and Dewey him· self is currently working on a modest resur­rec­tion of Elsie in the form of side panels for Borden milk, featuring Elsie’s own house­hold hints.

Elsie is prob­ably the only cow we could imagine as having a ​“house­hold”, From her earliest begin­nings that World’s Fair boudoir, she has always been at least as much human as bovine. With her light deli­cate face, large eyes sparkling with lashes, dainty hooves, frilly apron, and femi­nine demeanor, she fit perfectly the 1950’s image of all that was ​‘best in womanhood.

The fifties, Elsie’s heyday, was the great era of the ​“home­maker”. Natu­rally, Elsie had a spouse (didn’t everyone?) — the magnif­i­cent Elmer, a bull who was just macho enough. And Elsie had chil­dren (didn’t everyone? an average-sized fifties family had four chil­dren). Beulah, her first­born, was followed by a highly publi­cized preg­nancy and, in a great PR coup, a calf-naming contest. The winning name, Beau­re­gard, was chosen because, according to David Reid, ​“Beau­re­gard was the name of the general at the Battle of Bull Run”.

Elsie was active in World War II selling war bonds; she appeared in a movie; she was the first cow on TV. Count­less novelty items-toys, games, keyrings, crockery — appeared sporting Elsie’s smiling face; all these were licensed through the Borden Company in exchange for 5% of the whole­sale price. ​“All this helped develop Elsie’s person­ality,” David observes. ​“Her person­ality gave her creditability”.

But as the fifties waned, so did Elsie’s popu­larity. She received fewer fan letters, each to be answered on her own mono­grammed lavender stationery with her inim­itable sign-off, ​“From moo to you”. Even the birth of twins (and a new calf-naming contest — -Larabee and Lobelia were the winners) could not bring Elsie’s popu­larity back to former levels. The Borden Company was diver­si­fying; certain top-level manage­ment figures wanted a newer, more abstract corpo­rate image. ​“They put Elsie out to pasture”, David Reid sighs. When David left Borden in 1961 to come west and work on wine adver­tising and pack­aging, first with E. and J. Gallo, then with Seagram, Elsie’s days were ’ already numbered. ​“From milk to wine”, chuckles David. His highly successful career with the wine industry includes the inven­tion of the reusable wine carafe as a package for Paul Masson wines, and a number of extremely success· full promo­tional pack­ages. ​“It was great fun, working with the wine industry. We went to Europe every summer … ” But Reid doesn’t miss it now. ​“It’s great to be able to do what you want”, he says. Doing what you want, if you’re David Reid, means painting now just for yourself- the adver­tising (or ​“commer­cial”) artist freed to follow his own personal vision.

Carafe Prototype
Carafe Prototype 
Re-usable carafe Paul Masson
Re-usable carafe Paul Masson 

Here is the small plastic proto­type designed by Davie Reid. Here from Etsy: Vintage Paul Masson Wine Carafe Doves & Grapes, Signed Norman Kosarin 1988.

Can Elsie be revived? It’s a chal­lenge for Dewey Reid, a 26-year-old grad­uate of Cali­fornia College of Arts and Crafts and College of Marin. Is there a place for this sort of human animal creation in the corpo­rate world of the 1980’s? David Reid thinks so – -“look at Miss Piggie!” But he also points out that ​“you have to have a pixie-ish atti­tude about it. That’s what is rare in corpo­rate manage­ment today. There’s less emphasis on non-commercial PR events, more on pure selling.”

What­ever the results of Dewey’s modest revival of Elsie the cow, it seems certain that Petaluma’s Design Lab has a promising future. Dewey keeps busy designing wine labels and pack­aging, with David only a few miles away and ready to offer a benign word of advice now and then. Dewey has been espe­cially pleased to join forces recently with Richard Moore, a highly acclaimed water­col­orist with a current show of 45 works at the Nut Tree gallery. Dewey studied painting with Richard in Hawaii, and considers this his most valu­able learning expe­ri­ence. ​“lt’s impor­tant to work with someone who is 30 times better than you are,” Dewey comments.

“Callas” by Richard Moore from a Water­color Exhi­bi­tion at Nut Tree. January 6 thru May15, 1982, Nut Tree, Cali­fornia 95696

While Richard’s vibrantly colored flowers and land­scapes grace the gallery of the Nut Tree, and Dewey hones the skills of his craft in his studio at Design Lab, David enjoys his retire­ment in his spacious, light-filled studio at his seaside home. There he strug­gles, as all artists must, to express his own person­ality, his view of the world.

While confessing admi­ra­tion of such diverse figures as the contem­po­rary artist Richard Diebenkorn and the turn-of-the-century Albert Marquet, Reid has a horror of anything deriv­a­tive. He need not worry. His paint­ings reveal echoes of his favorite artists, espe­cially the bril­liant, some­times clashing colors of Marquet (Marquet was a member of the group known as the Fauves — the Wild Beasts — for their, at that time, outlandish uses of color; Matisse is perhaps the best known member of this group). But Reid’s paint­ings are emphat­i­cally his own. ln them we see an artist defining his own style, striving to create not what Borden or Gallo or Seagram wants, but what David Reid wants.

David Reid Abstract
David Reid Abstract 
David Reid Abstract
David Reid Abstract 
Street Scene
Street Scene 
Landscape
Landscape 
David Self-Portrait
David Self-Portrait 
David Reid
David Reid 
David Reid paintings
David Reid paintings 

“It’s diffi­cult,” he admits. ​“But the solu­tion lies in working.” David Reid will be having his first one-man show this spring, and that gives him added incen­tive. The show promises to be a revealing look at Reid’s search for self-expression.

“I think that there are more talented artists working today in commer­cial illus­tra­tion than ever before”, says David. ​“At least they have more ability tech­ni­cally, if not creatively”. It’s Reid’s great strength that he has ability in both areas, and has put it to use throughout a long life devoted to art, both commer­cial and non-commercial. Dewey Reid has certainly inher­ited a degree of his father’s creative energy, and he has the neces­sary training and tech­nical skills. As he combines these abil­i­ties with those of his asso­ciate Richard Moore, an artist of great strength and poten­tial, the future of Design Lab looks bright.

North Country Journal February 11, 1982


David Reid — creator of Elsie the Cow
By Carl Nolte, Chron­icle Staff Writer Dec 19, 2003

David Reid
David Reid 
Elsie
Elsie 

David William Reid, an adver­tising marketer and creative director who was the lead member of the team that created Elsie the Cow, one of the top adver­tising icons of the last century, died Saturday at his San Rafael home.

Mr. Reid, who spent the last 43 years of his career in Cali­fornia, was also a deco­rated World War II bomber pilot and a major figure in marketing for the Cali­fornia wine industry.

He was best known for his creation of a pleasant-looking bovine who became the symbol for the Borden Compa­ny’s line of dairy products.

Elsie the Cow was voted one of the 10 top icons of all time by Adver­tising Age maga­zine and was so famous that marketing surveys in the 1940s found that 98 percent of the Amer­ican public recog­nized Elsie. At one time, she was better known than such imag­i­nary figures as Mickey Mouse, and a 1952 poll found that Elsie was better known than such real life celebri­ties as Robert Taft, a candi­date for pres­i­dent that year, and Van Johnson, the actor.

Elsie’s image appeared in 107 coun­tries, and Elsie helped sell $10 million in war bonds during World War II, appeared in a movie with Jack Oakie and Kay Francis, received several tongue-in-cheek college degrees (doctor of ​‘bovinity’ was one) and received the key to over 200 cities.

Though Elsie’s image and the Borden name were sold in 1997 to the Dairy Farmers of America, Elsie is still the symbol of several cheese prod­ucts. Elsie’s creator was born in Detroit, trained as an illus­trator and attended the Grand Central School of Art in New York. In the late ​’30s, he was working for Borden in advertising.

Most adver­tising symbols are the work of a number of people, but Mr. Reid was the lead designer on Borden’s project to find a trade­mark animal. Mr. Reid devel­oped Elsie’s look, including her big eyes and the daisy neck­lace she wore around her neck. Elsie made her debut in 1938 on Borden ads and was an imme­diate hit. She led a whole family of mystical cattle and was part of a number of spin-offs including ceramic prod­ucts, books, posters and other Elsie images.

By 1939 Elsie the Cow’s picture was in maga­zine and news­paper ads, on bill­boards and in dairy cases every­where. Elsie was a celebrity, right up there with Joe DiMaggio and other heroes of the day. She was the star of Borden’s exhibit at the New York World’s Fair. According to Mr. Reid’s son, Dewey Reid, Mr. Reid designed a barn for Elsie as part of Borden’s ​“Dairy of the Future” show and then helped pick a live cow to repre­sent his creation.

The animal selected — a Jersey named ​“You’ll Do Lobelia” — made regular appear­ances at the fair and then went on the road on promo­tional tours in a specially designed truck.

However, she was badly injured in a traffic acci­dent in 1941 and was euth­a­nized. Forty nine other live Elsies have followed. In 1940, Mr. Reid designed a husband for Elsie, a brawny bull named Elmer, who had his own career as an icon for Elmer’s Glue. There were several offspring, including a calf named Beau­re­gard, for P.T.G. Beau­re­gard, the Civil War general.

World War II had broken out in the mean­time and Mr. Reid joined the Army Air Corps. He flew 63 missions in the Mediter­ranean in a B‑26 and his bomber’s nose was deco­rated with a picture of Elsie. He received the Distin­guished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart and the Air Medal with 11 Oak Leaf clusters.

After the war he went back to work for Borden but was recruited in 1960 to work for the E. and J. Gallo Winery. Here he helped design and market labels and other mate­rial for Thun­der­bird, Ripple and other popular wines. He later worked for Paul Masson, where he devel­oped the concept of selling wine carafes, now widely copied.

In the late ​’70s, Mr. Reid worked on one of Paul Masson’s most famous campaigns — which starred actor Orson Welles, who announced that Paul Masson ​“sold no wine before its time” in a voice that sounded like God. Mr. Reid ended his corpo­rate career at Browne Vint­ners, as vice pres­i­dent and creative director marketing a variety of Euro­pean wines​.In his last years, he took up painting and creating art on computers.

The above report was written by Carl Nolte.
Carl Nolte is a fourth gener­a­tion San Fran­ciscan who has been with The Chron­icle since 1961. He stepped back from daily jour­nalism in 2019 after a long career as an editor and reporter including service as a war corre­spon­dent. He now writes a Sunday column, ​“Native Son.” He won several awards, including a distin­guished career award from the Society of Profes­sional Jour­nal­ists, a maritime heritage award from the San Fran­cisco Maritime Park Asso­ci­a­tion, and holds honorary degrees from the Univer­sity of San Fran­cisco and the Cali­fornia State Univer­sity Maritime Academy.

— — — — —

With an eye to his future, David turned to his son, Dewey, when deter­mining the desti­na­tion for some of his future ashes. With no lack in orig­inal thinking, they worked a plan — -where Dewey would fly back to NYC and don a pair slacks that had been altered at the bottom cuffs with pockets, to drop David, as Dewey would walk along Madison Avenue! David loved the concept! The orig­inal ​“Madison Avenue Men!

Dewey Reid’s story, next month.

Ann Thompson


Recollections

Posts pagination

1 2 … 224 Next

Artist's Sites

  • Bill and Nina Stewart
  • Bill Cone
  • Bill Schwob art
  • Bob Bausch
  • Bruce Lauritzen
  • Bruce Wolfe
  • Bryn Craig
  • Caleb Whitbeck
  • Charles Pyle
  • Chris Blum
  • Chuck Eckart
  • Darren Hanshaw
  • Dave Broad
  • Fred Lyon
  • Gale McKee
  • Hans Halberstadt
  • Jack Allen
  • James Propp
  • Janet Jones
  • Jeff Leedy
  • Jerry Huff
  • Jim Stitt
  • John Mattos
  • Kirk Henderson
  • Larry Keenan
  • Lowell Herrero
  • Marc Ericksen
  • Mark Keller
  • Mark Schroeder
  • Mik Kitagawa
  • Robert Arnold
  • Robert Evans
  • Robert Gantt Steele
  • Roger Shelly
  • Stan Dann
  • Stephen Rutherford
  • Tom Whitworth
  • Ward Schumaker

Artist Galleries

  • Tom Watson
  • Keehn Gray
  • John Pratt
  • Chuck Eckart
  • Jerry Huff
  • Al Davidson
  • Bill Nellor
  • Jim Stitt Designs

Copy Writers

  • Joel Fugazzotto
  • Samm Coombs
  • Todd Miller

Still In The Game

  • Bill and Nina Stewart
  • Bill Schwob work
  • Chris Blum
  • Darren Hanshaw
  • David Johnson
  • Fred Lyon
  • Hans Halberstadt
  • Jack Tom
  • James Propp
  • Jeff Leedy
  • Jim Stitt
  • John Mattos
  • Kirk Henderson
  • Lars Melander
  • Marc Ericksen
  • Mark Keller
  • Mark Schroeder
  • Peter Thompson
  • Robert Arnold
  • Robert Holmes
  • Rory Phoenix
  • Scott Simpkin
  • Stephen Rutherford
  • Steve Rustad
  • Tom Whitworth
  • Ward Schumaker

Places We Like

  • Patterson Hall Early History
  • Piet Halberstadt
  • Printing Films
  • The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies

Copyright © 2025 Geezers’ Gallery.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme

Geezers’ Gallery
Privacy Policy / Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: PressBook Premium.