Miss Liberty’s in the Money and Her Check Proves It

--Florist Joseph Deihl, who lives in Burnham, Pa., hit on the idea of offering on sale a special carnation bunch for $1.88 with $1 of it going to the Statue of Liberty restoration fund. He also ran radio ads telling customers in his community of 3,000 that for three days in the spring of 1985 his special “cash-and-carry” bouquet for Miss Liberty was on sale. After mailing a first check of $175, Deihl got a letter from the Liberty Foundation telling him to stop it. He was an unauthorized fund-raiser. Having already cashed his check, the foundation wrote its own for $175 and returned it to Deihl. “It is the policy of the foundation to refuse to accept contributions generated from commercial tie-ins unless such tie-ins are done with consent and cooperation of the foundation,” wrote Palmer B. Wald, attorney for the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation Inc. Deihl, 59, figured he actually lost money on his sale, but he and his wife, Ruth, had planned similar specials, hoping to raise a total of about $500. However, the florist is having the last say: “I was disappointed, until I realized that as long as I didn’t cash it (the foundation’s check), they still had the $175,” Deihl said with a smile. “So there’s still $175 of money that was given by individuals from Mifflin County that were used to help restore the Statue of Liberty.”

--The eldest of President Harry S. Truman’s four grandchildren was married Saturday on the 67th anniversary of his famous grandparents’ wedding. Clifton Truman Daniel, the eldest of Harry and Bess Truman’s four grandchildren and a son of Margaret Truman Daniel, married Polly Bennett at St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington, N.C. Daniel’s father is E. Clifton Daniel, former managing editor and associate editor of the New York Times. The younger Daniel, 29, is a reporter for the Morning Star newspaper in Wilmington. Bennett, 27, is a free-lance artist and jewelry designer. Both are Wilmington residents. Margaret Truman, an only child, and E. Clifton Daniel have three other sons.

--Comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who came to the United States from the Soviet Union nine years ago, will be sworn in as a citizen Thursday by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger during the Statue of Liberty Celebration in New York. “It started at the immigration office at Kennedy Airport,” he says of his American audience. “I told the interpreter I wanted to do comedy and I got one of the biggest laughs I’ve ever had.”