Fern Brown - Daisy and the Girl Scouts. The Story of Juliette Gordon Low

DAISY

and the Girl Scouts:

The Story of Juliette Gordon Low

Fern G. Brown

Illustrations by Marie DeJohn

Albert Whitman & Company

Morton Grove, Illinois

T o my husband, Leonard,

and to our children, who have raised their

children to be good scouts.

I wish to thank the following people who were of great assistance in the preparation of this book: Katherine Keena, Mary Levey, and Mary Degenhardt of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.; Elizabeth Shenton, Assistant to the Director, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe College; Ilene Ielmini, the Georgia Historical Society at Savannah; Ann Valdez, Native American Education Services College, American Indian Center, Chicago, Illinois; Jack Hicks and Rick Bean, Deerfield Public Library, Deerfield, Illinois; Natalie Rothbart; Peggy Rogers; and Leonard J. Brown.

I also consulted the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Chicago Historical Society; and the Southern Historical College Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

These books and articles were especially helpful:

Addington, Sarah. The First Girl Scout. Good Housekeeping, February 1927.

Choate, Anne Hyde, and Helen Ferris, eds. Juliette Low and the Girl Scouts. New York: Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., 1928.

Dictionary of American Biography, under the entry Low, Juliette Gordon.

Gordon, Arthur. I Remember Aunt Daisy. Readers Digest, March 1956, 120-122.

Lyon, Nancy. Juliette Low: The Eccentric Who Founded the Girl Scouts. Ms., November 1981.

McBride, Mary M. Portrait of Juliette Low. Good Housekeeping, March 1933.

Notable American Women, 1607-1950, under the entry Low, Juliette Gordon.

Price, Mrs. Theodore H. Girl Scouts. Outlook, March 1918, 366-367. Saxton, Martha. The Best Girl Scout of Them All. American Heritage,

June-July 1982, 38-47.

Schriner, Gertrude, and Margaret Rogers. Daisys Chicago Heritage. Elk Grove, Ill.: Prairie Girl Scout Council, Inc., 1989.

Schultz, Gladys Denny, and Daisy Gordon Lawrence. Lady from Savannah. Philadelphia and New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1958.

United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1919, under the entry Girl Scouts as an educational force.

Fern G. Brown

Contents

The Promise

O N 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 Laws

I WILL DO MY BEST :

to be honest

to be fair

to help when I am needed

to be cheerful

to be friendly and considerate

to be a sister to every Girl Scout

to respect authority

to use resources wisely

to protect and improve the

world around me

to show respect for myself

and others through

my words and actions.

Chapter One

Daisy, the Young Rebel

H er real name was Juliette Gordon Low, but every-one called her Daisy. When she was a young woman, fun-loving Daisy spent much of her time giving parties or being entertained. Her interest in anything never lasted long, and she flitted from one project to another. Although her friends found her charming, others thought she was odd and undependable.

Imagine everyones surprise when, at age fifty-two, Daisy Low founded the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.! Who would have thought that scatter-brained Daisy, who had health problems and could barely hear, would begin with two small troops and build an international organization? Yet she did. With enthusiasm, hard work, and much of her own money, Daisy proved she could do whatever she made up her mind to do.

Born on October 31, 1860, in Savannah, Georgia, Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was the second child of Eleanor Lytle Kinzie Gordon and William Washington Gordon II. Almost everyone in the Gordon family had a nickname. So when an uncle said, Ill bet shell be a daisy, Juliette was nicknamed Daisy.

About six months after Daisy was born, the Civil War began in the United States. The war was a struggle between the Northern states and the Southern states. Each region had different customs and different ways of thinking. Many people in the North wanted to abolish slavery, but most Southerners believed people should be able to own slaves. Some states felt state governments should be more powerful than the federal government. Other states disagreed. Then Abraham Lincoln was elected president, and the North gained control of the government. Several Southern states decided to leave the Union and form their own confederation of states. Mr. Lincoln didnt want the Southern states to leave the Union. In December 1860, South Carolina seceded, or broke away, from the rest of the United States. On April 12, 1861, fighting broke out in Charleston, South Carolina, between the Confederates or Rebels from the Southern states and the Union army or Yankees from the North.

Daisys paternal grandfather, the first William Washington Gordon, had been a Southerner. With a group of men he had built the Central of Georgia Railroad, and he had been mayor of Savannah several times. His son, Daisys father, who was also named William Washington, was a partner in a cotton business and owned slaves. He became an officer in the Confederate army.

Daisys mother was a Yankee. She had grown up in Chicago, which was in the North. Daisys great-grandfather, John Kinzie, had been an Indian agent. He represented the U.S. government in dealing with Native Americans. John Kinzie married Eleanor Lytle McKillip, a widow with a daughter. In 1779, when she was nine years old, little Eleanor had been captured by a group of Seneca, who were part of the Iroquois Nation. She lived with them as Chief Cornplanters daughter for four years. She dressed as a Native American and learned their language and customs. The Seneca treated her like a princess, and because she moved so fast, they named her Little-Ship-Under-Full-Sail. Eleanor grew to love her Seneca family.

Eleanors parents never stopped trying to get their daughter back. They asked Col. Guy Johnson, a British Indian agent, to help them. He went to Cornplanters village and persuaded the chief to bring Eleanor to the next Council Fire so her parents could see her.

Eleanor was then thirteen. She had promised Chief Cornplanter that she would never leave the Seneca without his permission. But when she saw her mother, Eleanor ran into her outstretched arms. Seeing Eleanor with her mother made Chief Cornplanter decide that she belonged with her family, so he left her with them and went home. All her life Eleanor thought of Chief Cornplanter with great affection.