Dear Wonderful Blog Readers,

I am unplugging, traveling, and taking a fortnight’s vacation from the blog. I’ll be back with you on Friday, 1 June with my 101st blog post and more Juliette Gordon Low tidbits. I might also have some interesting news from my publisher, Viking/Penguin.

In the meantime, think up some topics for me, please! I always love hearing from you.

Thanks,

Stacy

This Mother’s Day weekend seems an appropriate time to appreciate the adventurous spirit of Nellie Kinzie Gordon, Juliette Gordon Low’s mother. There are many episodes that could provide an understanding of Nellie, as she was drawn to excitement as a moth to a flame–particularly as a young woman. In 1900, Nellie was 65 years old, and still embracing the moments. That year found her accompanying her beloved husband, Willie Gordon, to Paris. It was the year of the great Paris Exhibition. Nellie kept a diary. Here is what she did:

She enjoyed an “excellent dinner with capital wines–claret and champagne” at the famous Palais de Trocadéro, which you can see at the end of the avenue below.

Palais de Trocadéro, Paris

Juliette Gordon Low occasionally embellished her letters with sketches. When she was away at school, she drew dress patterns to show her mother her sartorial preferences. Sometimes she illustrated a topic for a friend, feeling that words were inadequate. On rare occasions, she painted directly on the letter. Here is one example, taken from a letter to her dear friend Mary Gale Carter. The painting is entitled “Queenstown Harbor.”

Juliette Low's watercolor sketch entitled "Queenstown Harbor"

Well! This news is so wonderful, so phenomenal, that it has pushed my regular blog right off to next week!

In case you have not heard, Juliette Gordon Low has been chosen as one of this year’s recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom! This is the highest award a civilian can earn in the U.S.

She will join a select group of people who are distinguished in their various fields–many of them known to us as heros and reformers, intelligent and brave souls who dared to challenge society’s boundaries and by so doing moved us forward. Indeed, Juliette Gordon Low has done that.

President Harry Truman began this civilian award, but President John F. Kennedy renamed it and honed its intent in Executive Order 11085. The purpose was simply to recognize and honor citizens who made exemplary contributions to American “security or national interests,” to “world peace,” or to “cultural of other significant public or private endeavors.” The award can be given posthumously. Usually it is bestowed upon a living recipient.

This year, Juliette Gordon Low will be joined by some extraordinary Americans–the recognition of whom I believe would really touch her. For example, strong women such as Dolores Huerta, the passionate advocate for the rights of Mexican-American laborers, who, with Cesar Chavez, began United Farm Workers of America, and Madeline Albright, the first female Secretary of State. And then there’s the incredible Pat Summitt–the  best NCAA women’s basketball coach who has worked so hard on behalf of women’s sports and now Alzeiheimer’s education. Think how Juliette Gordon Low encouraged her first Girl Scouts to play basketball, despite the stigmas against girls in sports and against girls competing.

Early Girl Scouts playing basketball in Savannah.

Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in 1912, a time before computers, cell phones, or jet airplanes–before women had the vote, the ability to serve on juries, or easy access to careers or birth control. She lived in an era of tremendous change, and she loved it.  In an earlier post, I compiled a list of some of the political, social, and technological highlights of Juliette Low’s lifespan. What amazing things she saw!

One of the reasons that Juliette Low was such a terrific CEO was her ability to embrace change. She was often visionary in her understanding of how to grow Girl Scouting, including her enthusiasm for the new medium of film.

In 1918 there were no color films, and no “talkies” yet, either. World War I was still ongoing, and Girl Scouting was flourishing as a result of Juliette Low’s certain knowledge that girls yearned to be involved in significant ways in the national crisis. She was all in favor of the film that Girl Scouts created in 1918 entitled The Golden Eaglet: The Story of a Girl Scout. It was written by prolific American novelist and Girl Scout Josephine Daskam Bacon, and was an object lesson in how Girl Scouting could improve the lives of girls and, indeed, everyone in their community. Of course, nothing is easy at first, but our hero Margaret perseveres. And if you remember camping in “the old days,” was it like this?

Who wouldn’t want to be part of those purposeful, multi-talented, resourceful, responsible, heroic girls who knew how to meet every emergency but could still have fun? This was a recruiting film, and Juliette Low took it with her to show in as many theaters as she could rent.

In the second half of The Golden Eaglet, audiences learn why “housework isn’t so bad…,” why Girl Scouts are just as handy in the home as in the wild, and how Margaret earned her Golden Eaglet–the highest award Girl Scouting offers (today it’s called the Gold Award and it is still extremely difficult to earn).

And, Juliette Gordon Low herself appears, to pin the Golden Eaglet on a proud Margaret, and to close out the film.

Josephine Daskam Bacon recalled that while everyone else was overawed by the film cameras, Juliette Low was euphoric. “I am sure she would have liked to appear in every scene;” Bacon wrote; “she invented enough situations to have used up thousands of feet of film; she cheerfully suggested alterations of the plot, action, and management which puzzled and terrified the director….” When Bacon told her that she would be in the film, playing herself, Juliette Low, Bacon recalled, “threw herself into it with an ardor and a seriousness….” Observing Mrs. Low’s enthusiasm, Bacon suddenly understood that Juliette “loved that big hat; she loved that ridiculous whistle; she loved her whole uniform! She wasn’t wearing them, as some of us were, because it was necessary or because it seemed best: she loved to wear them!“

Josephine Daskam Bacon concluded that Juliette Low “drench[ed] with her vitality and enthusiasm the little plant she had brought over from England and cherish[ed] it till it grew into the great tree that it is to-day. And I don’t think anything less than that spirit could have done it.”

As Juliette Low’s biographer, I can only agree.

_____

Bacon’s reminiscences from “Here and There with Juliette Low in Girl Scouting,” in Juliette Low and The Girl Scouts, Anne Hyde Choate and Helen Ferris, eds. (New York: GSUSA, 1928), 133-139. Quotes from 134 and 135.