MY AUNT DAISY WAS THE FIRST GIRL SCOUT

MY AUNT DAISY WAS THE FIRST GIRL SCOUT
Arthur Gordon
Ever since my Aunt Daisy turned up on a postage stamp, I’ve been a little worried about her.
Once you’re on a stamp, you’re not a person any more; you’re an institution. When Daisy could
be bought for three cents, it put her in a category with Martha Washington, Susan B. Anthony,
Clara Barton, and Whistler’s Mother (also stamps), all awfully solemn and awfully dead. I never
thought she belonged there.
It’s true in 1912 she founded the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, a praiseworthy and
possibly stampworthy act. It’s also true that in 1956 the Scouts completed their restoration of her
birthplace, our old home on Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, Georgia. Henceforth, the house
will be a sort of living museum of Scouting, and this is a fine thing. What worries me a bit is
that, with all the honors heaped on Daisy, an increasingly visible halo will begin to encircle her
memory and people will cease to know what she was actually like.
She was christened Juliette, but from the beginning everybody called her Daisy. The facts of her
life are already known to millions of Girl Scouts, past and present. She was born in an old house
in Savannah on Halloween in 1860. She grew up in the Reconstruction Era with three sisters and
two brothers (my father was the youngest). She married a wealthy Englishman, William Low,
whose family also owned a beautiful old residence in Savannah. Shortly afterward, she was
rendered very deaf by a series of ear infections. Finally as a childless widow, she met Sir Robert
Baden-Powell, famed British founder of the Boy Scouts, and from him drew the ideas and
inspiration that led her to found the Girl Scouts of America.
These are facts all right, but they don’t give you any idea of color and excitement and confusion
that always surrounded Daisy. She was an Elizabethan character, impulsive, headstrong,
superstitious, naïve, intuitive, and endowed with a glittering array of talents. She could ride,
shoot, paint, act, carve wood, and work iron. She was a good linguist, a fair poet, and a talented
sculptress. On the other hand, she couldn’t spell, she was incorrigibly unpunctual (her favorite
watch had only one hand), and her absentmindedness could be fantastic. She was the only
woman I ever heard of who invited people to a large dance and then forgot all about it. She was
found sitting in bed, gloomily sorting out bills and wondering whether she was really hearing an
orchestra playing downstairs. She was delighted to learn it was.
She loved animals, regardless of size, shape, or condition. She was forever bringing home stray
cats, dogs, or horses she considered underfed or maltreated. This affection for animals was
probably the result of strong and frustrated maternal instincts: Daisy loved children but had none
of her own.
Children were invariably enchanted by her because she had the ability to turn everything into a
game. Girl Scouting to Daisy was a grand and glorious game. She was the world’s worst
organizer, and knew it, but she also knew that vitality and humor and fun are just as important as
organization.
Although her deafness was a constant trial to her, Daisy could always joke about it. Once,
listening to a speech she could not hear, she decided the speaker wasn’t getting enough

encouragement. She applauded loud and long and discovered only later that what she was
cheering was a glowing eulogy of herself as Founder of the Girl Scouts.
She still had plenty of energy left in 1912 when she turned 52 years old. She then returned to
Savannah, armed with an English Girl Guide handbook and the determination to bring Scouting
(or Guiding, as it was called then ) to the girls of America.
At first, no one took her seriously. She was deaf, she was middle-aged, and she had never been
involved in any large-scale public work. Her friends were used to her explosive fads that never
lasted very long. Her family teased her unmercifully about her preoccupation with what they
irreverently dubbed the “Girl Scouts” and waited for her interest to fade.
But it didn’t. She went from city to city making speeches, organizing troops, choosing leaders,
rewriting handbooks—bearing the expense herself, although by this time her funds were limited.
In 1914 she sold her pearls to help pay the rising costs.
With the restoration of the house completed, a portrait of Daisy as a young woman (a lovely
thing by a British artist named Hughs) hangs once more over the mantel in the library. In it, she
looks fragile, feminine, and pensive, as if gazing into some half-veiled future. Perhaps she was,
because she was always highly intuitive, almost psychic.
That was almost thirty years ago. But her warmth and her enthusiasm—the most endearing of all
human traits—are still very much alive. Maybe visitors to the old house will sense them when
they stand and look up at her portrait.
I know I will.
ACTIONS:
DAISY: stand up, turn around, and sit down
SCOUTS, SCOUTING: give Girl Scout sign
AMERICA: place hand over heart
JULIETTE: stand up, turn around, and sit down
SAVANNAH: all say “Hi y’all!”
WILLIAM LOW: bow from the waist
DEAF: cup ears with hands
SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL: give scout sign
RIDE: pretend to ride
SHOOT: pretend to shoot
PAINT: pretend to paint
ACT: pretend to act
CARVE WOOD: pretend to carve wood
WORK IRON: pretend to hammer on pieces of iron
ABSENTMINDED: scratch head
ANIMALS: all make animal sounds
CHILDREN: pretend to pat small child’s head