It was boomtime Tulsa, the summer of 1941. Close to war, patriotism was
at a fevered pitch and so was the oil business. The IPE held here was a major
international event, and to the big boys in the petroleum industry, oil really
could be personified as a "goddess." A symbolic figure holding aloft a flame
was what they wanted, and Anderson had a face and shape for it
    "I wanted to take art lessons, and decided if I got the job posing I'd use
the money to pay for them," she said. She was working two other jobs at the
time. She was born on Bruner Hill in a house with no indoor plumbing,
she said. She knew what it was like to grow up hungry, and she always
had to earn her own way. Having known poverty, she didn't like it.
    Allen paid her $2 an hour, a fair wage she thought, and there was no
question about Allen's reputation. Anderson says she was interviewed,
and when she got the job in competition with hundreds of other applicants,

she said, "Mr. Allen, why did you choose me?" He said, "Because you
have the same measurements as Betty Grable (the No.1 pinup girl of the
World War II era), 36-22-36.'" Anderson said that when she applied
and was hired, she did not realize she had to pose without clothes.
She was surprised but Allen's professionalism won her over. "It's
not that I got used to it," she said. "But at least I wasn't so frightened."

There was absolutely no hanky-
panky. She was only clay in the
sculptor's hands. When he no
longer needed a live model in
order to finish the piece,  
Anderson put the sculpture  
out of her mind, but    
assumed it would be    
erected as planned.