First Girl Scout Page 10

  FOLLOWING GENERAL GORDON'S DEATH, Nellie suffered a breakdown. She talked to her husband as though he had just stepped out to another room. Worried, Daisy stayed at her mother's side night and day. A doctor examined Mrs. Gordon and reported to the family, "Her heart, kidneys, liver, all are absolutely normal. She is simply stunned."

  Daisy came up with a plan to take her mother to England. Perhaps being around Mabel, Rowland, and their two young children, Rowland and Peggy, would lift Nellie's spirits. Everyone in the family remembered her long months of melancholy following Alice's death and agreed that the trip might help.

  After making sure her mother was settled in at Mabel's, Daisy traveled to Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. She told her friends and family that she needed to soak in the healing mineral waters because her rheumatism had flared up. But Daisy really needed to mourn her father privately. No one heard from her for weeks, and the family worried. Mabel wrote to say that Mamma was improving, although slowly. Arthur wrote several times too and sent his sister a gift for her fifty-second birthday.

  Being with Mabel's busy family helped Mamma heal after Papa's death. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  She finally responded to Arthur on December 1, explaining her long silence by saying, "I don't think it helps to write when one is ill." Daisy told him she felt that she had "lost, in Papa, the only human being who was indulgent to my faults, and took my part in all ways and always.... He loved me not more than the others, but he knew I needed him more, and in proportion I miss him more."

  Eventually, both Daisy and her mother climbed out of their deep wells of sadness, and Daisy resumed her busy social schedule. She was still an attractive woman, and several British military officers, including Nevill M. Smyth, whom she had met on her trip to India, called on her in England and escorted her to various events. But Daisy remained committed to the Girl Guides and chose to dedicate her life to "her girls." Nevill spoke to her troops about flying airplanes and, along with B-P and his wife, Olave, advised her on the direction Girl Guides should take in the United States.

  When Daisy returned to Savannah, she started making arrangements to purchase some wooded lots near Bona Bella. The girls enjoyed day-camping activities there, such as signaling with flags and learning how to identify animal tracks. Then Daisy bought the Girl Guides a boat to use on the surrounding network of rivers. In addition, they continued to march and play basketball on the property near Daisy's home.

  This photo shows some of the early Savannah Girl Scouts shooting basketballs in the lot across the street from Daisy's house. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  More and more local girls signed up, as did young women who assisted the troop leaders, including eighteen-year-old Eleanor Nash, who volunteered as a Guide Mistress. Because her parents were renting Daisy's house on Abercorn Street, Eleanor only had to step out the back door to help with meetings in the carriage house or to play on the basketball court.

  The Girl Guides in the first White Rose patrol went on a five-day camping trip organized and led by Daisy. It was always fun to spend time with Miss Daisy and enjoy her sense of humor and loud, infectious laugh. They learned camping techniques that the Boy Scouts used and that Daisy's great-grandmother had learned while traveling west in a wagon. The girls swam, cooked outdoors, paddled canoes, and gathered around campfires in the evenings. As one young camper shared, Daisy "could tell ghost stories till your blood ran cold."

  They had a great time, and only two complaints. Clouds of biting mosquitoes pestered the campers the entire trip, and the light-colored Georgia soil quickly made their dark blue uniforms look dirty. Eventually, troop leaders decided that it would be more practical to have khaki-colored uniforms that didn't highlight the dirt.

  Some of the activities that the Girl Guides participated in were considered radical in 1913. Many people felt that hiking and rigorous sports such as basketball were too strenuous and would make the girls less ladylike. Daisy, who had been raised to be an independent woman, disagreed. She believed in fostering active, healthy, and strong-minded girls who would eventually make their own life choices about marriage, having children, and even careers. Luckily, most families in Savannah respected the Gordons, and they trusted Daisy with their daughters.

  Daisy charged forward with the final preparations for her handbook for America's Girl Guides. How Girls Can Help Their Country: Handbook for Girl Scouts was published in 1913. By using "Girl Scouts" in the title, Daisy was clearly separating her organization from the Girl Guides. Part One reads:

  Girls will do no good by trying to imitate boys. It is better to be a real girl such as no boy can be.... Scouting for girls is not the same kind of scouting as for boys. The chief difference is the courses of instruction.... For the girls it all tends to WOMANLINESS and enables girls the better to help in the great battle of life.

  An early Girl Scout handbook. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  In the handbook, Girl Scouts were encouraged to "welcome all obstacles, as it is only by meeting with difficulties that you can know how to overcome them and be prepared for others in the future." Daisy continued to refer to the Girl Guides in the United States as Girl Scouts. Writing an article for the Savannah Morning News, she declared, "I selected the name 'Scouts' because the American likes to be original and I knew they would reject the name 'Guides.'" Actually, English girls had called themselves Girl Scouts too in the early months of 1910, just before and after the Crystal Palace rally, until they were organized into the Girl Guides by Agnes Baden-Powell. Even Daisy's English friend Rose Kerr used the words "Girl Scouts" in a January 9, 1913, letter to Daisy on Girl Guides letterhead.

  By this time, the girls were regularly reciting early versions of today's Girl Scout Promise and Laws at the start of each meeting:

  The Girl Scout Promise

  On my honor, I will try:

  To do my duty to God and to my country,

  To help other people at all times,

  To Obey the Laws of the Scouts.

  The Girl Scout Laws

  A Girl Scout's Honor Is to be Trusted

  A Girl Scout Is Loyal

  A Girl Scout's Duty Is to be Useful and to Help Others

  A Girl Scout Is a Friend to All, and a Sister to every Other Girl Scout no Matter to what Social Class she May Belong

  A Girl Scout Is Courteous

  A Girl Scout Keeps herself Pure

  A Girl Scout Is a Friend to Animals

  A Girl Scout Obeys Orders

  A Girl Scout Is Cheerful

  A Girl Scout Is Thrifty

  Daisy had gradually won over those who had privately thought her vision for a national or even a worldwide Girl Scouting movement was a frivolous idea. Slowly, one by one, friends, family, and even strangers began to listen to Daisy Low, and many offered to help. And they encouraged their daughters to join Girl Scouts so they could go camping, learn about animals, expand their knowledge of United States history, study the stars, and take part in additional activities that were not usually available to girls at that time, such as archery, rowing, and other team sports. Daisy also felt strongly about the importance of building "womanly" traits, so there were badges and activities involving home safety, cooking, and caring for babies, to prepare the Girl Scouts to be homemakers and parents. Those close to Daisy were delighted to see her so happy, and everyone admired her boundless energy.

  Soon, Daisy decided to open a national headquarters in Washington, D.C. Nell, who lived there with her husband, Wayne Parker, a congressman from New Jersey, helped her find an office. Daisy furnished it and hired a part-time office assistant. Then she convinced her friend Edith Johnston to move to Washington in the fall of 1913 to run the headquarters. Although Edith was reluctant at first, she eventually agreed. "I could not refuse her," she recalled. "I had seen what Girl Guiding had come to mean to our Savannah girls in one short year. I knew what it would mean to girls everywhere if it could be brought to them." Although the name had been changed to Girl Scouts,
many of the leaders, including Edith Johnston, would occasionally refer to the organization as Girl Guides and use the word patrol instead of troop.

  After establishing the office, Daisy began telling all her Washington friends about the Girl Scouts. Then off she dashed to New York, Baltimore, Boston, and other large East Coast cities to spread the word. Daisy was a dynamic and skilled speaker, and she captivated her audiences, along with any newspaper reporters who wanted to interview her. And from her office, Edith Johnston did everything she could behind the scenes to make Daisy and her Girl Scouts organization succeed, including answering requests for information, attending meetings, and filling orders for the handbook.

  Daisy was in contact with many important people, and she didn't hesitate to reach out and ask for help. In Chicago, she was the guest of Jane Addams, a well-known social reformer. In the early twentieth century, thousands of newly arrived European immigrants needed help finding jobs and learning English in the overcrowded cities. Jane and her friend Ellen Gates Starr had established Hull House in Chicago, a place where immigrant women and children could temporarily settle and make the transition from rural lives in their home countries to urban life in America. There were similar settlement houses, as they were called, in other cities, but Hull House was the most well known. Daisy's organization, which was open to girls of all backgrounds, must have appealed to Jane.

  Soon, Nell began pitching in at the national Girl Scout headquarters and enlisted the help of two prominent friends, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, who was Theodore Roosevelt's sister, and Thomas Edison's wife, Mina. Even Nellie Gordon, still spunky and outspoken despite two heart attacks following Willie's death, worked at the headquarters. She told Mabel that she didn't "give a [damn] about the Girl Scouts and Eleanor doesn't either. We are so glad Daisy is sticking to her interest that we want to do everything we can." Daisy's life finally had purpose. Mabel commented that her sister would butt her head against a brick wall and smash it to pieces to accomplish her goals. But now the head bashing wasn't to serve her own interests, but for the girls.

  Only one thing came before Girl Scouts for Daisy, and that was Mamma. At the age of seventy-nine, she was just as Rudyard Kipling had once described her in one of his magazine stories: "a little old lady with snapping black eyes, who used very bad language." In 1914, Daisy rented Castle Menzies in Scotland and invited Mamma and the rest of the family to come for the summer. "Everything is done up new ... and ... it all does look nice," Daisy wrote on June 22, after moving her furniture from London into the castle.

  By the end of July, Mamma, Nell and her children Beth and Corty, and Mabel and her son, Rowland, had all arrived. Daisy was delighted to discover that her castle came with a ghost, and she told Arthur in a letter, "Mam[m]a says she likes my haunted castle."

  But their quiet days in Scotland were soon over. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, and on France on August 3. The next day, Germany invaded the neutral country of Belgium. As a result, Great Britain declared war on Germany. By August 6, Austria-Hungary had allied with Germany. Europe was thrown into turmoil.

  Castle Menzies in Perthshire, Scotland, where Daisy lived for part of 1914. Iain Struthers Photography

  The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife on June 28, 1914, had ignited the tensions. Now the fighting had spread and was disrupting trade routes, causing shortages of food and other supplies. President Woodrow Wilson called upon the United States to remain neutral and promised a safe passage home for stranded citizens in England.

  Daisy managed to stock up on food before it became scarce, and she purchased an oil stove in case they couldn't get enough coal. There wasn't much gasoline available for nonmilitary vehicles, and Daisy's horses were commandeered by the armed services for transportation. She decided that she would bicycle to nearby farms to purchase local produce or stay safely inside to work on her sculpting.

  Nell had left for the United States before Great Britain entered the war. Finally, in the fall, Mamma sailed home on a troopship with Beth and Corty. Mabel and Rowland returned to their home in England, and Daisy went to London in December. The Great War, or the War to End All Wars, as many people called it, escalated until it involved most of the powerful countries of Europe. Many decades later, it would come to be known as World War I.

  Despite the wartime conditions, Daisy was able to return to the United States in January 1915. For a few months, she busied herself by keeping the national Girl Scouts headquarters running, and she personally paid for all uniforms, the printing of the handbook, and Girl Scouting–related government patents. The organization named Daisy their first president and held their first annual convention.

  Because of the war, Daisy couldn't access all her money, since it was tied up in English property and securities. She still had some resources, but she tried to go without. "I must save every penny for my Girl Scouts and no lights may go on until half-past five!" she wrote. She saw to it that nothing was thrown out in the kitchen, and guests were served leftovers.

  On May 1, 1915, a passenger vessel called the Lusitania left New York for Liverpool, England. Six days later, as it neared the coast of Ireland, a German submarine attacked and sank it. Among the 1,198 people who died were 128 U.S. citizens.

  Daisy desperately needed cash to support the growing Girl Scout organization, so she sold a fabulous pearl necklace similar to the one she's wearing in this photograph. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Americans were incensed, and many called on President Wilson to declare war on Germany. The president refused to be drawn into the growing European conflict but asserted that U.S. citizens had the right to travel at sea. Nonetheless, floating and submerged mines in the ocean and a German fleet that intended to torpedo boats carrying supplies made travel between the United States and Europe dangerous. Despite this, Daisy sailed to Liverpool that June, following her mother's eightieth birthday. The fate of the Lusitania was on everyone's mind.

  It was just as dangerous on land. Friends in Britain sent Daisy letters describing loved ones who had been injured, were missing in action, or had died. She had watched many of these young men grow up. She shared the awful news with her immediate family, and together they cried over the cruelty of war.

  After being struck by a German torpedo, the Lusitania sank in eighteen minutes. Bundes Archive

  Daisy penned many letters of condolence. According to her brother Arthur, she was quite religious and read the Bible frequently, and these sad letters were often accompanied by well-known biblical quotations. One of the most difficult letters for her to write was addressed to her friends Rudyard and Carrie Kipling on the death of their son, John, in 1915.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Organization Grows

  DAISY'S BRITISH FRIENDS AND FAMILY closely followed the news of the major battles in Europe. Tens of thousands of soldiers were injured or killed. Those not in active military service volunteered in their towns and cities, ready and willing to pitch in where they were needed. To do her share, Daisy continued working with her Girl Guides and their leaders. She helped set up training for three hundred Girl Guides in cooking and first aid, so they could provide support to soldiers and their families.

  The Savannah Morning News reported on May 7, 1916, that Girl Guides in London were helping with the war effort by delivering messages around the city on bicycles, and cooking food for workers in ammunition factories. They were "rushing through factories daily, basket on arm, to serve it."

  Daisy considered going to Belgium to participate in a new relief program started in late 1914 by an American couple, Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover. The program helped Belgian families who were left without food or homes after the German invasion. But when the Germans executed Edith Cavell, an English nurse, in Belgium on October 12, 1915, Daisy rethought her plans. Instead, she and Mabel became active in the Belgian war relief efforts in London.

  As the war continued, Mabel decided to
forego her biannual visits to America and stay in England with her British husband and their children. But Daisy sailed back and forth between England and the United States several times. Once, she accompanied her eighty-one-year-old mother to England because Mamma wanted to see Mabel and her family.

  While the Gordons were separated from Mabel, they could still send letters and telegrams. Mamma wrote proudly, "Daisy's Scouts are booming! [And] she is doing many wonderful stunts for them."

  Dashing about on behalf of Girl Scouts or Girl Guides, Daisy, who had never been punctual, seldom arrived in Savannah, New York, London, or any place on time. Her plans were always changing, and often no one in the family was sure exactly where she was. As Mamma wrote to Mabel, "I do not know how she lives through it all—losing things every hour—telephoning every minute—changing her plans every second!" Daisy even lost her passport more than once.

  Daisy wrote Mabel too, noting gleefully that their mother, in one of her letters, had put two l's in the word balance. She went on to say that she had written back, "I never use the word myself as I have not a balance anywhere, either in my actions or in my bank."

  Daisy's spelling was as bad as ever, of course. In one letter, she wrote, "I want to arrive by the eighteenth but this octobus [octopus?] movement of Girl Scouts is growing by leaps and bounds." She sometimes even misspelled her proper first name, Juliette. Mamma and everyone else did their best to interpret Daisy's spelling and learned not to expect her until they actually saw her.