First Girl Scout Read online

  Nonetheless, the wedding plans moved forward, as did the construction on the Gordon home. In the middle of the project, the contractor in charge died, and the city and surrounding areas experienced a major earthquake, which damaged the house. It took much longer for everything to be completed than anyone had anticipated. But finally, just before the wedding, the work was done and Mamma could instruct the servants to polish every corner of the home from top to bottom.

  The morning before the ceremony, Nellie checked every detail one last time. The servants had arranged vases of flowers and lighted fires in the many coal-burning iron fireplaces throughout the house. Then everyone left for the church.

  Despite Papa's misgivings about the groom, he escorted his daughter down the aisle and gave her away. At noon on December 21, 1886, Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was married to William Mackay Low at Christ Church in Savannah. Ten bridesmaids wearing white silk dresses and plumed bonnets attended the twenty-six-year-old bride.

  The event received expansive coverage in the Savannah newspapers, which noted that evergreens and plants decorated the church. Daisy chose a white theme for the wedding, and she carried lilies of the valley, Alice's favorite flower. Since the groom's father had died in July, the white theme was appropriate for mourning.

  Wearing a white silk dress with a lace-trimmed train, Daisy added a "sash ... looped with an elegant crescent of diamonds. Her veil ... was caught at the side with a diamond star, and she wore a handsome diamond shoulder ornament," a gift from Billow. He picked out the diamonds and designed the silver settings himself.

  The newlyweds arrived at the welcoming and warmed house for a midday meal with the immediate family and friends. Afterward, as they hurried out the door to a waiting carriage, Daisy and Billow were showered with rice for good luck. The couple took a boat to St. Catherine's, a barrier island fifty miles south of Savannah off the coast of Georgia, for their honeymoon.

  Willy gave each of the bridesmaids a pin in the shape of a daisy, with their wedding year on the stem. The entire pin was encrusted with diamonds. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Following their wedding ceremony, Willy and Daisy Low posed with friends and family in the Gordons' garden. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Within a day or two, Daisy's good ear began to hurt. Soon, the pain grew unbearable, and the couple returned to Savannah to seek medical help. A doctor removed a grain of rice from Daisy's ear and in the process accidentally punctured her eardrum and damaged the nerves. From that moment forward, Daisy was totally deaf in that ear.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Europe

  THE NEWLYWEDS SETTLED into the elegant home facing Lafayette Square that Billow had inherited from his father. Under doctor's orders, Daisy lived quietly at first to let her damaged ear heal. She was nearly deaf, but she and Billow were in love, and that was all that mattered.

  They filled the house with their wedding gifts, including a floor-to-ceiling gold-framed mirror from the Gordons. With advice and help from her parents, Daisy had the home's interior redecorated. The rooms were freshly painted and wallpapered, and fitted with new rosewood and mahogany furniture that complemented the pieces there that had belonged to Andrew Low. The exterior looked the same then as it does today: stucco over brick, with porches rimmed by fancy iron railings on three sides of the house. A pair of hourglass-shaped flower beds grace the front garden. By the entry stairs, two lion statues stand guard. Daisy liked to pat their heads whenever she went out the front door.

  After their wedding, Daisy and Billow lived in this three-story Italianate villa in Savannah. Library of Congress

  Daisy and Billow began to entertain, and Savannah friends and family looked forward to invitations to the Low house. The centerpiece of their dining room was a Georgian-style mahogany table with a carved base, big enough to seat twenty people. Their Dresden and Spode china and crystal glistened on the white tablecloth. Like her mother, Daisy was a skilled and popular hostess, and she decided not to wallow in self-pity over her hearing loss. Instead, she recognized that "it was simpler to take things into [her] own hands" by being entertaining and witty enough that her guests had to lean in close to hear her every word. She often used an ear trumpet to amplify sounds. Much later, Daisy would look back at this time as one of the happiest years in her life.

  But soon Billow grew restless, and Daisy wanted to consult a specialist in England about her hearing condition. The couple prepared to leave Savannah. Servants packed their trunks and Daisy's painting of her mother, and they sailed for England in the spring. Daisy took along her pet mockingbird and the dog Billow's sisters had given her.

  Knowing that she would live part-time in England in the future, Daisy painted this nearly life-size portrait of her mother to take with her, based on the original by G. P. A. Healy. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  At the start of their sea journey, Daisy met an elderly Englishwoman named Lady Bovill, who reminded her of her beloved Grandmother Gordon. Over tea, Daisy admitted that she was nervous about moving so far away from home. The two women chatted comfortably, and Lady Bovill assured Daisy that she would fit easily into English society.

  The British Empire was at the peak of its power in 1887, and Daisy and Billow arrived in time to witness a harbor jammed with flag-bedecked military ships and yachts celebrating Queen Victoria's Jubilee, her fiftieth year as the reigning monarch.

  Billow's sisters and friends greeted them and made them feel immediately welcome. Within a short time, the newlyweds threw themselves into a fast-paced lifestyle, driven by the personality of Billow's friend Prince Albert Edward of Wales, who enjoyed leisure sports and often invited the Lows to attend events with him. Daisy was not fully prepared to step into this society of dukes, duchesses, princesses, and princes who lived in castles and palaces and grand manor houses. While her education was excellent, and her fluent French and knowledge of European history and literature could be put to good use, this was a whole new world. However, after spending time in New York, she felt comfortable in bustling London.

  The couple slipped easily into an established social scene that revolved around the seasons. They eventually wanted to buy a home, but at first Billow rented a seasonal country property in Warwickshire, outside London. He also took a ten-year lease on a hunting lodge near the Scottish town of Lude in Perthshire, which fed Daisy's lifelong affinity for Scotland. The Lows enjoyed the opera, theater, and city life in London in the summers. During the fall, Billow and Daisy pursued outdoor activities like grouse shooting, deer hunting, and fishing in rural Scotland. Then, after winter arrived, the upper class of England migrated to their country estates. All year long, there were teas and dinner parties, horseraces and fashion shows. Some, like the events at the Ascot Racecourse, were both fashion shows and races.

  Prince Albert Edward of Wales was Queen Victoria's son and was often called Bertie by his family and close friends. Author's collection

  Wherever they lived, there were endless rounds of themed parties. Some invitations were for fancy costume balls that Daisy adored—she loved to dress up! Many of their friends' large homes and castles had formal ballrooms for dancing. And Daisy was determined not to let her limited hearing be a handicap. She whirled about the dance floors, smiling and laughing with her various partners.

  Billow was generous. He gave Daisy more than enough money to buy whatever she wanted, including the latest fashions from Paris. And he enjoyed buying her rubies, diamonds, and sapphires and having them set in designs he personally approved.

  Daisy always looked elegant. Here, she is dressed in a gown from Paris and wearing diamond swallow-shaped pins that were a gift from Billow. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  In 1889, Daisy and Billow purchased a country estate called Wellesbourne House in the center of Warwickshire, an area known for its excellent fox hunting. Lush lawns surrounded the ivy-covered white stucco home, which became their primary residence.

  The property was in a historic part of the English countryside, ne
ar Stoneleigh Abbey, a much-larger mansion owned by the author Jane Austen's relatives, the Leighs. At the time, Austen's novels, including Pride and Prejudice and Emma, were widely read, even though they had been written earlier in the century. Daisy was thrilled to be close to the Leighs' estate as well as to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of the playwright William Shakespeare. Castles and large, sprawling homes often were part of the romantic literature Daisy had read as a girl. It was like a dream to be living among them with her handsome husband.

  Daisy's pet mockingbird perched on her shoulder while she wrote letters home. "I let him fly about the drawing room and he jumps on my head," she told her mother. "And ... he scolds and bites my hair, and he snatches the pen from my finger[s] when I try to write." After the mockingbird died, she had her parents send her another one from Georgia.

  Although Daisy had promised her brother Bill that she and Billow would live part of the time in Savannah, that was not to be the case. Daisy loved her new life and home. She only managed to return to America in the winter. Her trips there usually consisted of a whirlwind round of visits to her friends and family in the North, time with her parents in Savannah, and, whenever possible, jaunts to Etowah Cliffs, too. Billow joined her on some of these journeys to the United States.

  At Wellesbourne House, there were kennels for the hunting dogs. Daisy's growing menagerie of small pet dogs slept on her bed and traveled everywhere with her. They often had funny-sounding names like Blue Blah, a chow, and Chinkapen, a black and white Pekingese. She even laid her pets to rest in a cemetery on the property, where her characteristic misspellings were evident on the tombstones.

  Billow stabled fifty horses there, for he liked to go on hunts with hounds and enter steeplechases, horseraces through obstacle courses. Daisy's favorite form of exercise was to ride her horse around Warwickshire. And she and Billow continued to join the Prince of Wales and his friends at racing meets around the country.

  Daisy frequently had her picture taken with various pets, including this dog, whose name we don't know. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Eventually, Daisy was invited to appear at court in Buckingham Palace to be presented to Queen Victoria. It was a great honor, and it was important for Daisy, as the wife of an Englishman in high society and an American by birth, that the day go perfectly.

  Daisy rushed to Paris and ordered a gown of white satin to be made with a skirt overhung with ostrich feathers and a film of tulle. The dress had three feathers on one shoulder, and its veil with three plumes symbolized the crest of the Prince of Wales. According to court rules, her train had to be over five meters (about sixteen feet) long. It was the most expensive gown Daisy had ever owned! She later wrote, "I wore all my diamonds and carried a white bouquet."

  Daisy arrived at the palace at three o'clock in a horse-drawn carriage, accompanied by the Marchioness of Hertford. She waited with hundreds of other invitees and noted, "It took us until six to walk through seven rooms.... My train weighed tons and my bouquet pounds! I disposed of the bouquet by perching it on the bustle of the lady in front of me ... and ... she carried it the length of all the rooms!" Daisy also mentioned in her letter that she felt a bit like the memorable Becky Sharp in William Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair because of the pressing crowd at the palace and that, like Becky, she needed to "'look out for number one,'" meaning herself.

  Queen Victoria spent only an hour receiving guests in the Throne Room, so Daisy did not see her. Instead, she was presented to other members of the royal family and later joked, "I felt exactly as if I were bowing to those wax figures of Royalty at Madame Tussauds and I almost expected to see the ropes of red silk around them and a placard of 'please do not handle the figures.'"

  Although Daisy had a happy and busy life, she longed to start a family. And Billow wanted a male heir to carry on his name. But the babies did not come. Daisy quietly consulted doctors to find out why she couldn't get pregnant. According to her sister Mabel, Daisy may have had a miscarriage, but even Mabel didn't know for sure. At that time, no one talked openly about "female issues."

  After Daisy seriously injured her back several times while riding her horse, her doctors advised her to give up fox hunting and other strenuous rides that might involve jumping fences or ditches. Even though she could no longer join in, she invited her local fox-hunting friends to her home for lunch or tea after the hunts during the season in Warwickshire.

  No one turned down a social event organized by lively Daisy Low. In public, she was always charming and upbeat, despite her personal setbacks, which she tried to keep to herself. Her British friends loved her humorous stories, which were often set in America, and they seldom realized that she had done most of the talking to avoid the strain of trying to hear multiple conversations. At the time, there were several types of ear trumpets, some small enough to fit in a pocket or a purse. No doubt Daisy used one, especially when there might be several people speaking at the same time. Her cook, Mosianna Milledge, who had come from Savannah, often served Southern American food—ham dishes, turtle soup, roasted canvasback ducks, corn, grits, sweet potatoes, and pecan pie—made from produce and meat that Papa sent from home. Daisy kept visitors' books for Wellesbourne House, and they became stuffed with photographs of people and her pet dogs and birds and contained signatures and drawings from family, friends, and dignitaries who visited her from around the world.

  Before electrical hearing devices were invented, Daisy used an ear trumpet like these. The stem was inserted into the ear, and the cone was pointed at the source of the sound. The trumpet shape helped amplify the sound and direct it back through the stem and into the ear. Some were made of light metal and others were made of celluloid. The Hearing Aid Museum/www.hearingaidmuseum.com

  Over the years, Billow continued to join his friends on hunting adventures, and his trips took him farther and farther away, to exotic places like Africa, for big game hunting, and India, where he shot elephants. Meanwhile, Daisy stayed home and kept busy. She carved a mantelpiece to go over the fireplace in Billow's smoking room, where the men gathered after meals to enjoy cigars and play cards. Over the mantel she hung a portrait of Billow painted by James Lynwood Palmer, and she decorated the room with her own oil paintings of some of their best hunting dogs.

  This painting by James Lynwood Palmer captured Billow doing one of the things he loved most: riding one of his horses. Andrew Low House

  Then Daisy took up ironworking, after persuading the village blacksmith to teach her. She had a forge constructed at Wellesbourne, and for an entire summer she hammered away on a pair of iron entrance gates she designed for the house. Her niece, Eleanor, who was twelve at the time and visiting with her mother, Nell, helped "cut from sheets of the copper the flowers and leaves to decorate those gates. The edges were filled; veins were made by hammering them over a grooved instrument; then they were shaped and bent on an anvil." The gates were embellished with daisies. It was hard work, and Daisy commented, "I developed the muscles of my right arm to such an extent that I couldn't get into any of my clothes."

  If Daisy was lonely because Billow was away so much, she did not complain until the spring of 1889. Then she wrote Mamma, "One thing I want very much ... [is] to let Arthur come over and be my guest for the entire summer. I will pay all his expenses.... There are many times that I am alone, and if I only had one member of my family with me, I could be so happy."

  Mamma agreed to the trip, knowing how much Daisy missed her younger brother. Arthur turned seventeen that August, and the long summer visit would bond brother and sister for the rest of Daisy's life. Nineteen-year-old Mabel also arrived that fall and stayed for a year. She filled her leather-bound diary with snapshots of the house and of friends who visited her sister, and she tucked in newspaper clippings about the times. Mabel had her own bedroom on the second floor, and she visited every summer and for several winters until she married in 1898.

  Daisy's parents had visited her in 1887, shortly after her move to England. Th
ree years later, in 1890, she invited them to Wellesbourne House. "I keep thinking all day and dreaming all night of having you and Papa here. Oh! Do try and come. I so long and yearn to see you both." They came the following year, along with Arthur, Mabel, and Bill.

  It didn't take Daisy's bubbly, witty Mamma long to become part of Britain's social scene. Friends of Billow and Daisy began to affectionately call them "Puppa" and "Mumma," just as Billow did. Some of them even visited the Gordons in Savannah. Over the years, her parents would return again and again.

  Around this time, a new and interesting neighbor moved in nearby. Rudyard Kipling was an author who was just launching his writing career, and he and his American wife, Carrie, visited Wellesbourne often. "Rud" and Daisy shared a fondness for children and animals, and they formed a close friendship.

  Although Daisy seemed happy, her relationship with her husband was troubled. Billow had an unpredictable and childish side, and he was often gone for long periods of time. To taunt her, he would speak softly so Daisy couldn't catch every word, and as a result, she was often unsure of his destination or how long he would be away.