Uncle Bob & Finland

Basil Robert McAllister, a wispy, stoop-shouldered Bronx bank teller, first fell in love with Finland at the New York World's Fair, in 1939. He visited the Finnish Pavilion on his days off, met and liked the Finns who worked there. A bachelor, he joined a Finnish club in Manhattan, went to dinners and dances there. When the fair ended, he began to correspond with his Finnish friends who had returned home. Said he: "The Finns are very straightforward and honest and dependable. They agree with me and I agree with them."

The war stopped his correspondence, but after V-E day he began to hear again from his friends. "They had nothing but paper, paper, and more paper--they even wrapped the babies in paper." One woman wrote that she "had nothing left to fix and nothing to fix it with." McAllister began to do what he could.

Every spare minute and every spare penny went for packages of food and clothing. He collected what he could from friends, bought the rest himself. He sent 300 pairs of shoes, 480 sets of underwear, overcoats, blankets, hundreds of cans of food. In two years, he sent some 600 packages, totaling more than 6,000 pounds. He helped friends of his original friends. In all, he aided 25 families.

A month ago, his grateful Finns made up a pool, paid for his air passage for a visit. Armed with hundreds of lollipops for the children, McAllister went. He saw nearly all his families. The children had been taught to say: "How do you do, Uncle Bob. Welcome to Finland." Last week McAllister returned happily to the U.S. and to his lonely one-room apartment in The Bronx. He hoped to save enough in two years to visit Finland again.

How much had his one-man Marshall Plan cost him? McAllister insisted he did not know. He knew that postage alone had cost him $700 in one year. He admitted that it had taken most of his savings. Said McAllister: "I spent as much as I could spare. Don't you think it's more important for kids to have milk and shoes than to watch the bankroll?"

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