First Girl Scout Read online

  And the sad news spread. Notes of love from Girl Scouts, friends, and family overflowed Daisy's mailbox. She laughed about all the flowers that arrived. "There won't be any left for the funeral if this keeps up!" Her nephew Arthur would later write, "[Aunt Daisy] was always ... roaring with laughter, often self-directed."

  On January 16, Daisy changed her will, making sure everyone in the family received something. She left the house to her brother Bill's deaf son, also named Bill, knowing he might need extra financial help. The last paragraph of her will read, "I trust I have left no enmities; and I leave and bequeath to my family my friendships, especially my beloved Girl Scouts."

  To Mary Gale Carter, her dear school friend and the mother of Anne Hyde Choate, she wrote, "How nice it is to believe we may meet in the future for we have loved each other many years, and our love will endure after death.... Give my love to Anne, and make her realize that when she took up Girl Scouts, she gave me one of the happiest hours in my life. I can't write more just now."

  Family members filled the house, weeping, hugging, mending any rifts, and saying their final goodbyes. Then, on January 17, 1927, Daisy died as she wished, at home in Savannah.

  After everyone else left, Peggy Graves lingered for a moment in her aunt's bedroom. Daisy's well-worn Bible, bound in crocodile skin, sat on the bedside table. Peggy "stood at attention and saluted [Aunt Daisy and] ... suddenly realized that she was smiling as if she had found something very lovely at the end of her journey."

  Juliette Gordon Low's funeral service was at Christ Church in Savannah. Some two hundred Girl Scouts lined up along each side of the steps leading to the church's doors. They ranged from the youngest girls, the Brownies, on up in rank to the Golden Eaglets. Family, friends, Girl Scouts, and community leaders filled the pews.

  Local Girl Scouts formed an honor guard at Christ Church in Savannah for Daisy's memorial service. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Roses and lilies covered her coffin. Above, in the choir loft, the Girl Scout flag was draped beside the American flag. The solemn but simple candlelit afternoon ceremony ended with one of Daisy's favorite hymns, "Fight the Good Fight."

  This was Daisy's favorite photograph of herself. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Daisy was laid to rest under the great magnolia trees in Laurel Grove Cemetery, near her parents and her sister Alice. As she had requested, she was buried in her Girl Scout uniform, wearing the insignia of her beloved organization, including the Silver Fish and the jeweled Thanks Badge.

  Again at her request, a telegram was tucked into her uniform pocket. It had come from her dear friend Anne Hyde Choate, but it expressed the words of everyone on the Girl Scout National Council. It read:

  You are not only the first Girl Scout but the best Girl Scout of them all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Big Little Woman's Legacy

  WHEN DAISY DIED IN 1927, there were about 168,000 Girl Scouts in the United States. She left these young women in good hands, to be led by many of her friends and relatives at the national level, and by dedicated adult leaders in small towns and cities around the country. Daisy would be delighted to know that there are now approximately 3.4 million girls and adults actively involved in Girl Scouts. Her dream for "all of America" and the entire world has come true.

  Girl Scouting first came to America in 1912, inspired by the British Girl Guides. But it wasn't until 1932 that March 12, 1912, was designated the official birthday of the Girl Scouts. In 1947, the name was formally changed to the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA).

  The GSUSA is a nonprofit organization and the largest voluntary organization for girls in the world. It belongs to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), a worldwide family of 10 million girls and adults in 145 countries. WAGGGS is the successor to the International Council of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts that Juliette Gordon Low, Olave Baden-Powell, and others created in 1920.

  The GSUSA National Headquarters and the National Historic Preservation Center (NHPC), the department of GSUSA where the archives are kept, are in New York City. There are more than one hundred councils throughout the United States, supporting more than 200,000 local troops. Girl Scouts also live in United States territories and overseas in some ninety countries. Every American First Lady, starting with Edith Wilson in 1917, has served as the honorary president of the Girl Scouts.

  This 1935 billboard invites young women to join Girl Scouts and "build character." Georgia Historical Society

  The quickest way to learn all about Girl Scouts is to visit their website, www.girlscouts.org. Another way is to find a local Girl Scout council and contact the leader of a troop. In spite of the many changes between Daisy's era and now, the Girl Scouts still strongly support her firm belief that it's all about the girls. She wanted her girls to have fun and form friendships while building character and self-worth and helping out in their community. They still do all these things today.

  Girl Scouts is open to girls of all races and religious beliefs from kindergarten through high school, ages five to seventeen, including young women with physical or developmental disabilities. The GSUSA values diversity and inclusiveness and has adopted a strong official inclusion statement. A girl can join a troop or work independently as a "Juliette." Women and men over the age of seventeen can join the organization as adult volunteers. Troops are organized by grade:

  Girl Scout Daisy — Grades K–1

  Girl Scout Brownie — Grades 2–3

  Girl Scout Junior — Grades 4–5

  Girl Scout Cadette — Grades 6–8

  Girl Scout Senior — Grades 9–10

  Girl Scout Ambassador — Grades 11–12

  The National Board of Directors runs the GSUSA, and they often reach out to the young Girl Scouts, volunteers, and staff throughout the organization to get feedback. This partnership between the national office and the local troops has resulted in a more modern leadership philosophy based on a renewed commitment to the values inherent in the Girl Scout Promise and Law. The current Promise and Law read:

  The Girl Scout Promise

  On my honor, I will try:

  To serve God* and my country,

  To help people at all times,

  And to live by the Girl Scout Law.

  The Girl Scout Law

  I will do my best to be

  honest and fair,

  friendly and helpful,

  considerate and caring,

  courageous and strong, and

  responsible for what I say and do,

  and to

  respect myself and others,

  respect authority,

  use resources wisely,

  make the world a better place, and

  be a sister to every Girl Scout.

  In 2006, the organization adopted the mission statement "Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place." This is exactly what Daisy envisioned when she first became involved with Girl Guides in Great Britain.

  Girl Scouting continues to emphasize a healthy lifestyle and outdoor activities, such as camping, canoeing, and bird watching. Girls still earn badges in these areas, as well as in first aid, cooking, and infant care. During Daisy's time, there were only a few dozen badges; now there are hundreds. Many of the current ones are designed to be appropriate for the needs of a particular age group, and they often reflect the changing times. Girls might earn a badge by participating in environmental events like planting a tree or studying native plants, or work on a music-related badge by making an instrument or attending a ballet or opera. They can learn to surf, design jewelry, or help out at a local animal shelter. Older girls might work on breast cancer awareness or aviation, or learn about teen pregnancy and AIDS.

  Daisy's original vision included getting girls involved in many outdoor activities. This was unusual in 1913, when this photograph was probably taken. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Girl Scouts can communicate with other Girl Sc
outs online, and they can even earn badges by using the Internet, often guided by an adult leader. For example, the Sky Search badge directs the girls to planetarium websites so they can gain a better understanding of stargazing, constellations, and star maps.

  The Gold Award is now the highest honor earned in Girl Scouting. It is given to a Girl Scout who creates change by developing and implementing a project that fulfills a particular need in her community. The young women who earn the Gold Award are typically juniors or seniors in high school, and they choose to finish their Girl Scouting experience by doing something meaningful, such as working with incarcerated mothers, helping children in low-income schools improve their literacy, or gathering and organizing library books for hospice patients.

  Thinking Day was first commemorated on February 22, 1927, a few weeks after Daisy's death. And Girl Scouts still celebrate Founder's Day every October 31. Both days are part of the extensive calendar of Girl Scout council events, including the annual Girl Scout Week celebration in March. In addition to being active in a local troop or council, the girls have the opportunity to attend Girl Scout camps around the country, conferences, and events at four international WAGGGS Centers: Our Chalet, in Adelboden, Switzerland; Pax Lodge, outside of London, England; Our Cabaña, near Cuernavaca, Mexico; and Sangam, close to Poona, India.

  Savannah, Georgia, is a popular destination for thousands of Girl Scouts. The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, her family home, is located in the heart of the city's historic district, and is now a National Historic Landmark and a Girl Scout National Program Center. Built in 1821, the Wayne-Gordon House is at 10 East Oglethorpe Avenue. At the museum there, tours are conducted and educational programs given for Girl Scouts, their families, and individuals. Interpretive staff lead tours through the house, which is furnished as it appeared in 1886. Visitors love their funny and lively stories about Juliette Low and the Gordon family. Some of Daisy's art is exhibited inside the house, including two sets of hand-painted dinner plates. And the iron gates that she forged for Wellesbourne House in England are displayed in the garden. The museum store is a popular part of the site.

  President Harry Truman signed the bill authorizing the release of this stamp to honor what would have been Juliette Gordon Low's eighty-eighth birthday on October 31, 1948. From the collection of Hal G. Evarts Jr.

  The Andrew Low House is also located in Savannah at 329 Abercorn Street. Guided tours feature antique furnishings and the Low family history. Guests enjoy hearing about some of the home's famous visitors, such as Robert E. Lee, and learn about Daisy's life as a newlywed in this house.

  Behind the Low House, at 330 Drayton Street, is a carriage house, built in 1848. In 1912, Daisy converted the building into what is now called the Girl Scout First Headquarters (FHQ). It was willed to the Girl Scouts of Savannah upon her death and is run by the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia. It opened on January 15, 1996, as a Girl Scout museum, and it houses archives documenting the Savannah Girl Scouts from 1912 to the present. Visitors can take a self-guided tour, and troops can participate in interactive programs there.

  This photograph shows Daisy (fourth from left, back row) with a Girl Scout troop at the headquarters building behind her house in Savannah. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Besides these three sites associated with Juliette Low, visitors can go to Laurel Grove Cemetery, where the Gordon family graves are located, and to Christ Church, where Daisy was christened, married, and memorialized after her death. Daisy's hometown is a primary destination for heritage and cultural tourism, with lots of places to explore.

  A group of Girl Scouts read The American Girl one of the nation's first magazines for girls, at Camp Juliette Low in 1923. Girl Scouts of the USA-NHPC

  Although box designs and cookie recipes have changed, Girl Scout cookie sales continue. About two hundred million boxes of cookies are sold each year. The Rally, which became The American Girl magazine, is no longer published. But today there are many new program-related materials, handbooks, and web pages for the Girl Scouts and their adult leaders. Girl Scouts can also participate in leadership journeys, coordinated series of activities grouped around a theme.

  As friends and family recalled, Daisy loved her uniform and everything that went with it, including her knife and tin cup. She would have been fascinated with the new badges, patches, and pins, as well as with the many styles and colors of uniforms that girls have worn since 1927. Juliette Gordon Low has received numerous posthumous honors, which she also would have enjoyed.

  But perhaps Josephine Daskam Bacon, an early member of the Girl Scout National Board of Directors and the first chair of the Publicity Committee, honored Daisy best when she called her friend "a big little woman" who stepped into many roles as a "dauntless little Joan of Arc, planting her precious [Girl Scout] banner all over the country; a broadminded administrator, adapting herself shrewdly to changing conditions; [and] a gracious Southern woman, honoring her friends with every means in her hands.... It will be hard for those she brought together to forget her," Mrs. Bacon concluded.

  Daisy never forgot her three Girl Guide patrols in Great Britain or her first two patrols in Savannah, Georgia. In fact, she kept in close contact with the girls by visiting them and writing them letters. As the organization grew, she tried to meet as many other Girl Scouts as she could at conferences and camps, around campfires, and wherever girls gathered. It would be a huge job for Daisy to stay connected today, since the Girl Scouts of the USA has over fifty million alumni, including the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright; America's first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor; the television personality Katie Couric; the Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee; the NASA astronaut Sally Ride; the actress and singer Keke Palmer; and the actresses Dakota and Elle Fanning and Reese Witherspoon. But knowing Daisy, she would find a way to befriend all the alumni and the more than three million active Girl Scouts and their leaders. I have a plan, she might tell a friend.

  In this photo taken circa 1913, Daisy is surrounded by dozens of Girl Scouts, doing what she loved best: being with "her girls." Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  TUESDAYS WERE OUR MEETING DAYS, right after school in our local La Jolla Community Center. I belonged to Troop 695. La Jolla is a sleepy beach town in Southern California, where the weather is nice nearly 365 days a year. We swam in the Pacific Ocean, hiked throughout San Diego County, camped in the nearby desert, and collected mistletoe in the backcountry that we sold in ribbon-bedecked bunches. We enjoyed dinner dances with our fathers, put on fashion shows with our mothers, marched in our uniforms in the local parade, and sang endless Girl Scout songs.

  For two summers in a row, I attended a weeklong Brownie camp in the nearby Cuyamaca Mountains, where I passed a swimming test, made a tulle doll, and had a wonderful time.

  As Girl Scouts, we worked on earning new badges, and the last one was for cycling. Sleek-looking ten-speed bicycles were just becoming popular at the time, and eventually we each earned enough money to buy one. We practiced endlessly and pedaled everywhere in our county until we achieved our goal: to bicycle fifty miles in four hours.

  We joined the American Youth Hostel (AYH), an organization we had studied to get our cycling badge. During the summer of 1960, Ann Boughton, our longtime leader, rented an AYH bus that had S-shaped hooks in the back where we could hang our thirty-some bicycles. We stowed our gear and food below them, and off we went! For five glorious weeks, we rode in the bus on highways and cycled on country roads from Southern California to western Canada and back while camping in state and national parks each night. In that pre–cell phone era, our parents received only the occasional postcard. The experience was life-changing.

  This is a picture of the Girl Scouts in front of the AYH bus in 1960. I'm fourth from the right. Author's collection

  Many of the members of Troop 695 gathered at a recent Girl Scout reunion. I'm at the top left. Author's collection

  We sang ma
ny songs on the bus and around campfires, but there is one, about making new friends and keeping the old, that I will never forget. Our friendships were formed as Brownies and Girl Scouts in the 1950s and 1960s, and now, many decades later, we remain treasured friends. We visit one another, send e-mails, and exchange news about our significant others, our families, and now our grandchildren.

  And yes, we hold reunions. We bring our photo albums, show off our badge-decorated sashes, still sing those familiar songs, and know that our friendships began with Troop 695.

  Thank you, Juliette Gordon Low!

  MAKE NEW FRIENDS

  2. A circle's round; it has no end.

  That's how long I want to be your friend.

  3. A fire burns bright; it warms the heart.

  We've been friends from the very start.

  4. You have one hand, I have the other.

  Put them together and we have each other.