First Girl Scout Read online

  Everyone knew that Daisy was incapable of making and keeping a budget. She hadn't managed her allowance as a schoolgirl, and she still couldn't manage her money. Her accounting system consisted of four envelopes. They were marked "This Year," "Next Year," "Sometime," and "Never."

  Papa and Arthur tried to help. They assured her that she had enough money as long as she paid her bills on time, and they made this suggestion: "Wait to get your income before you spend it." One time, Daisy's father was so exasperated, he wrote, "You are not only making an illegal demand for something to which you are not entitled, but you make yourself ridiculous in doing so." He added, "I do hope, for your own sake as well as for the peace of mind of your relatives and business representatives, that you will reform. Your loving Papa." Despite their efforts, Arthur and Papa were never able to change Daisy's ways.

  She continued to entertain in England and quietly consulted doctors about her deafness. Her hearing seemed better some days than others, and she was fond of saying, "It comes and goes like the fog." She tried a variety of hearing devices, as they were called then, with little success. She even used one of the first electric hearing aids. "It was a tricky device," according to her nephew Arthur Gordon, "because, if the earpiece got too close to the transmitter, it squealed like an anguished pig." Daisy could not hear the high-pitched sound, but it hurt everyone else's ears.

  By then, Daisy was a mature woman in her forties with iron-gray hair. Her nephew Arthur said that she still had her "warm brown eyes, a strong nose, firm mouth, and a very determined chin." And she had a beautiful smile. Her face lit up whenever she entered a room full of people, even though it frustrated her not to be able to hear everything they said.

  In early 1909, Papa wrote Daisy that William Howard Taft, the twenty-seventh president of the United States, was coming to Savannah in May and would stay overnight in their house. Papa and Taft were acquainted because they had both attended Yale University. Papa asked Daisy for advice about how he and her mother should prepare for the big event. After all, she had successfully entertained the future king of England.

  The first electric hearing aids were developed around 1900. Carbon microphones amplified the sound. Patented by Thomas Edison, the carbon microphone was also a key component of Alexander Graham Bell's invention, the telephone. Hearing Aid Museum/www.hearingaidmuseum.com

  Daisy suggested that her parents find out about the proper customs and ceremonies when entertaining an American president. Additionally, she thought that her parents should redecorate the house from top to bottom, with fresh paint and new curtains. And she recommended that they hang a big U.S. flag over the front porch.

  Mamma took Daisy's advice, even though she grumbled about the expense. Eventually, the Gordon house sparkled inside and out. Bouquets of flowers decorated every room. Even the dining room chairs had been replaced.

  Mamma wrote Daisy that the president had arrived in time for a light supper. One of the Gordons' granddaughters sat next to him. She plucked a yellow chrysanthemum from a centerpiece on the table and poked it into the president's lapel as a boutonniere. He was delighted! They chatted while President Taft, a very big man, ate two helpings of everything. He proudly wore his yellow flower at a banquet in Savannah later that evening.

  The next morning, the president joined the family for a large, leisurely breakfast that featured Mrs. Gordon's famous waffles buried in butter and maple syrup. Before leaving for a parade downtown, President Taft wrote in the guest book, "With delightful recollections of Savannah hospitality and with the hope of returning when this real commander in chief is in the party." He was referring to his hostess, Nellie Gordon, and the Republican party.

  Daisy's parents were in their seventies but still busy and in good health. Since 1906, Daisy had been spending her winters in the United States, which included visits to Savannah. She especially liked to spend time with her father. Together, they rode horses to Papa's farm, Belmont, which was located outside the city, so he could inspect the property, watch his field hands at work, and see how high the cotton was. An Irish terrier named Mr. Dooley often followed them.

  In front of the Gordon home, President Taft sits in the back seat of his touring car following his overnight stay. His automobile, like many in the first decade of the twentieth century, had no top. It was a grand-size vehicle for the times, with four doors and seating to accommodate six to eight people in comfort. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Whenever Daisy returned to England, Papa tried to entice her to come back to Savannah by telling her stories about Mr. Dooley or her mother, which he knew she enjoyed. In one letter, Papa joked that Mamma was dashing off her usual thirty letters a day each morning "while brushing her teeth and putting up her back hair." He shared seasonal farm details about the corn, oats, and cotton crops. Because Daisy liked birds, he told her about mockingbird nests around the house and coveys of quail in the fields.

  Daisy cherished Papa's love and steadiness. Yet she remained as restless as ever, traveling to Canada and Egypt. Next, she toured Spain and France and wrote home, "I find friends everywhere."

  The family hoped that Daisy would settle down and maybe even remarry. Several eligible men did show romantic interest in her, including a few British military officers. One even professed his love. But Daisy felt it wasn't the right time to begin a new relationship. She told her mother, "I am just an idle woman of the world, with no work or duties. I would like to get away ... and work at sculpturing—start to do some work in life."

  In 1911, she wrote this verse, titled "The Road," in her journal, reflecting on some of the unhappiness she had experienced:

  The road which led from you to me

  Is choked with thorns and overgrown.

  We walked together yesterday,

  But now—I walk alone.

  Finally, Daisy signed up for sculpting lessons in Paris. From the beginning, she loved "modeling," as she called it. She pinched, rolled, and twisted clay into figures, happily working for eight hours a day. Eventually, her teacher told her that she was ready to move forward with sculpting on her own.

  Daisy was a talented artist. She could paint in oils or in watercolor, decorate delicate dessert plates with wildlife scenes, forge an iron gate, design clothes, and now work in clay. She enjoyed woodworking, too, and skillfully carved designs onto mahogany dressers and bed frames. Daisy promised her sculpting teacher that she would continue her work at home in her leisure hours, but instead, off she whirled to another party or luncheon. As her brother Arthur would later reflect, "Much of her work reveals real power, which could have been developed had she concentrated upon any one medium."

  This painting of Daisy by her niece, Alice Parker Hoyt Shurtleff, now hangs in Daisy's bedroom at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace House in Savannah. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  At a luncheon in London on May 11, 1911, Daisy sat next to General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who was known all over Great Britain for his leadership and bravery in the Boer War, a turn-of-the-century power struggle between the British and the Boer people (Dutch immigrants) in South Africa. Daisy had attended hundreds of luncheons like that one, but meeting him was a life-changing experience for her.

  A gentle and charming man, Baden-Powell told Daisy about how he had run an experimental camp for teenage boys on Brownsea Island, off the southern coast of Great Britain, while he was in the army. The campers learned first aid and other useful outdoor skills, as well as how to be honest and fair young men. He explained to Daisy that he had gone on to start organized Boy Scouting, which had officially begun in 1908 with the opening of an office in London. The group was growing quickly and spreading outside Great Britain. These stories of his work with the Boy Scouts fascinated Daisy.

  She had just returned from her sculpting class and told the general all about it. To her delight, Baden-Powell revealed that he too was a sculptor, as well as an artist in other mediums. They soon discovered that they shared a common ancestor, Captain John Smith, an Englishm
an who helped establish the colony of Jamestown, in what is now Virginia.

  Like Daisy's grandfather and great-grandfather on her mother's side of the family, Baden-Powell had first learned wilderness survival skills in America. He had later used these skills as a soldier, and eventually they spurred the formation of the Boy Scouts. Daisy couldn't wait to tell her mother.

  Baden-Powell told Daisy that as a child, he had accompanied his mother on nature walks, where he learned about plants and animals. He had taught himself how to snare a rabbit and cook it. While he was at school at Charterhouse in Godalming, England, he spent a great deal of time in the woods on his own. Tracking animals, leaping streams, and passing through the wilderness without leaving any footprints were other skills he honed as a boy and then used as a soldier. As he rose up the ranks in the army, he trained his men to be equally self-sufficient.

  Daisy shared with him the true story of her own great-grandmother's capture by Indians and of her mother's work to revise Ganny Kinzie's book Wau-Bun, The "Early-Day" in the North-West.

  Within a week, Daisy and Sir Robert Baden-Powell met again, and like his friends and family, she was soon calling him B-P. He often wore a broad-brimmed hat and a handkerchief at his neck, and he carried a walking stick that he had used to leap across streams and wade through swamps in his younger days. The stick was also marked off in centimeters so it could be used for measurement.

  On May 30, 1911, Daisy wrote in her journal, "The impression he makes on one is equally contradictory. For instance, all of his portraits and all of his writings represent him in action, essentially a man of war, though never has any human being given me such a feeling of peace." Just two days later, she reflected, "A sort of intuition comes over me that [B-P] believes I might make more out of my life, and that he has ideas which, if I follow them, will open a more useful sphere of work before me in the future."

  B-P was enchanted with Daisy, and he wrote her several notes. In one, he asked her to tea with his mother and sister at the London home they shared. Daisy reciprocated, inviting him to join her in her box seats at the opera.

  After discovering another common interest in castles, they motored to the countryside to explore several together. Daisy owned an early model automobile produced by the Ford Motor Company, which had been founded by Henry Ford in 1903. Cars were growing in popularity, and they shared the roads with horse-drawn wagons, bicyclists, riders on horses, pedestrians, and even grazing animals. At the time, drivers were not required to take written or behind-the-wheel exams in Great Britain or the United States. Daisy was a notoriously bad driver.

  General Sir Robert Baden-Powell was a military hero in Britain. He built on his childhood and army experiences to found the Boy Scout organization. Scout Association Trustees

  Billow and his friends hadn't been very interested in intellectual or artistic pursuits. Now Daisy happily chatted with B-P about working in clay and other mediums, and she looked through his sketchbooks.

  Their friendship flourished, even though they were both extremely busy. Young men were bombarding Robert Baden-Powell with letters, asking how they could join the Boy Scouts. B-P had published a training manual for soldiers called Aids to Scouting in 1905, but he revised it for young scouts. It was renamed Scouting for Boys and released in 1908. The response was phenomenal. Scout patrols everywhere were influenced by B-P's popular book.

  Daisy (right) enjoys a picnic with B-P and some friends in the rugged Scottish countryside. Girl Scouts of the USA-NHPC

  On June 17, Daisy wrote about another meeting with B-P in her journal:

  No doubt about his magnetism. I told him a little about my futile efforts to be of use, and the shame I feel when I think of how much I could do, yet how little I accomplish.... A wasted life. He looked so kindly when he said, "There are little stars that guide us on, although we do not realize it."

  Daisy wondered just when her "little stars" would finally appear.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  An Idea for All of America

  ON JUNE 22, 1911, Daisy attended the coronation of King George V. He succeeded Billow's dear friend King Edward VII, who had died a year earlier of a bronchitis-induced heart attack. Edward had been excessively overweight and had smoked cigars and cigarettes for years, which contributed to his poor health. Thousands of people filled the streets of London to see the newly crowned king and his queen, Mary, but they cheered the loudest at the sight of General Baden-Powell, who participated in the ceremony.

  Daisy often invited B-P to accompany her on outings and to events, but he was so popular that he was often already booked. Finally, he was able to join her and some friends in Scotland at Lochs. They fished for trout in the streams, and at night, they listened to records on Daisy's Victrola, which had been a present from Mamma. Over and over again, she had thanked her mother for the wonderful gift. As they listened to recordings of operas that they had both seen in London, Daisy saw yet another side of B-P. He liked to pretend to sing the various songs and act out scenes with Daisy and her guests.

  This is a Victor Talking Machine, similar to a Victrola, one of the earliest record players. Daisy loved to listen to records and play them as loudly as she wished. Author's collection

  During his stay, B-P also shared his evolving plans for the Boy Scouts. In 1909, he had invited all the scouts to meet him for a rally at the Crystal Palace in London, an exposition hall made of cast iron and glass. Eleven thousand Boy Scouts showed up, and he was stunned. Much to Baden-Powell's surprise, thousands of English girls had signed up to attend the rally too. He realized that there was much he could offer to the growing group, so he resigned from the army to devote all his time to the Boy Scout organization. Even King Edward VII had encouraged B-P to work full-time for the movement.

  From Scotland, Daisy wrote Papa:

  The Girl Guides is a sort of outcome of the Boy Scouts. When Baden-Powell first formed the Boy Scouts, six thousand girls registered as Scouts. And as he could not have girls traipsing about over the country after his Boy Scouts, he got his sister, Miss Agnes Baden-Powell, to form a society of Girl Guides [in 1910].... I like girls and I like the organization and the rules and pastimes, so if you find that I get very deeply interested you must not be surprised.

  Girl Guides was based on B-P's scouting principles for boys. The organization's first president, Agnes Baden-Powell, declared, "Girls must be partners and comrades, rather than dolls." Agnes had many interests, from astronomy to art to natural history. She also participated in sports such as skating and swimming, played musical instruments, was skilled in nursing, and kept bees, birds, and butterflies in her home. And she knew eleven languages! It was no surprise that Agnes and Daisy enjoyed each other's company.

  B-P was a thoughtful man. He knew that Daisy desperately needed to find herself and do something meaningful with her life. Yet he suggested that she not rush into getting involved with Girl Guides unless it truly appealed to her. Perhaps he was aware of her tendency to throw herself into a new hobby only to later lose interest.

  This time, Daisy wasn't about to get sidetracked. She really liked the basic principles of Girl Guides. Girls and young women would develop self-esteem and confidence, leadership skills, healthy lifestyles, and friendships around the world and also reach out to others as part of a team, all while experiencing a sense of adventure.

  Headstrong as ever, Daisy told her father in August 1911, "I am getting up a corp[s] of Girl Guides here in this glen where the Highland Girls are so far from the world they remain ignorant of all details of nursing the sick and the way to feed and bring up delicate children."

  She had already dashed off handwritten invitations to every girl in her area to come to tea. On a Saturday afternoon, seven nervous farm girls were ushered into Daisy's home. They all lived in Glen Lyon's long, narrow valley, their remote cottages scattered far apart. One girl walked six miles to reach Daisy's house.

  Agnes Baden-Powell, the first president of Girl Guides and the sister of Robert
Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts. Girl Scouts of the USA-JGLB

  Along with tea, Daisy offered her guests warm scones, bread and butter, strawberry jam, and cakes. The just-baked delicacies were served on fragile dishes hand-painted by Daisy and her sisters, and accompanied by white linen napkins. While enjoying the delicious food, the fire in the fireplace, and the promise of friendship, the girls listened to Daisy discuss Girl Guides, captivated by her lively, inviting personality.

  They returned to Daisy's home every Saturday during that summer of 1911. Daisy made it a rule that each meeting should include tea. In the early meetings, the new Girl Guides studied the history of the British flag and how to tie knots. With the help of some handsome young Scots Guards officers staying in nearby Meggernie Castle, they were taught other skills that the Boy Scouts were also mastering, such as map reading and signaling with flags. The girls also learned first aid and personal hygiene, starting with the importance of brushing one's teeth.

  All the girls in Daisy's group came from poor rural families, and it distressed her that they and their brothers were expected to eventually move to the big cities to work in factories. At the time, factory owners often hired children and women because they were desperate enough to work longer hours than most men, and for lower wages. There were few government regulations to protect them from what were often unsafe and unhealthy work sites. Living conditions for those who toiled in the factories were also crowded and unsanitary, and it was not uncommon for the workers to contract diseases like tuberculosis and die young.