Dana Meachen Rau - Who Was Juliette Gordon Low?

Juliette Gordon was born on October 31, 1860. Her parents, William and Nellie Gordon, were pleased at this new little arrival. Her older sister, Eleanor, was excited for a new playmate.Juliette was named after her mothers mother. To avoid confusion between the two Juliettes in the family, they called the new baby Daisy, which was a common nickname at the time. This nickname stayed with her for the rest of her life.

The family lived in a mansion owned by Mr. Gordons mother in the beautiful city of Savannah, Georgia. Her parents were wealthy. William was a businessman who bought and sold cotton in the southern United States. Nellie was a strong and friendly woman who liked to do as she pleased. She came from an important family in the northern United States. Her family was one of the first to settle in the city of Chicago, Illinois.

When Juliette was less than a year old, the American Civil War broke out between the Northern and Southern states. Her father left to become a Confederate (Southern) soldier. Her mothers brothers were fighting for the North. Juliette often saw her mother looking sad, and she would only see her father when he came home for short visits.

Juliette spent her early childhood with her big sister, Eleanor. They played together on the violet-lined paths and climbed trees in the garden. Sometimes Juliette and Eleanor had to dress up and go for walks around the neighborhood, but Juliette would much rather be free to play!

Slavery was a system in the South that forced Black people to work without pay. Wealthy white enslavers depended on labor from enslaved people to run their plantations and treated them like property. They bought and sold them, and often beat them and separated family members from each other.

President Abraham Lincoln wanted to end slavery in the United States. Most people in the Northern states agreed with him. But the Southern states did not. The South wanted to keep slavery and chose to separate from the rest of America. So a war began between the Union (the Northern states) and the Confederacy (the Southern states). At the end of the war, the Northern states had won, and slavery was abolished.

Juliettes little sister, Alice, was born in 1863. Then the Gordon household grew even fuller when Juliettes aunts moved in. Because the country was at war, the family had a hard time feeding everyone. Mrs. Gordons family sent packages of food from Chicago, but that was still not enough. The young girls grew thin and sick. They had to take spoonfuls of sulfur medicine mixed with molasses, but they didnt mind, since it tasted sweet.