Renovations are completed at the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital headquarters, 4301 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite M-2. The history team has celebrated its new display cases with a 1920s uniform recently donated to our collection.
It started with an email–the kind I am lucky to receive almost weekly. “I have an old uniform, would you like it?” Absolutely!
But this didn’t turn out to be your basic 1960s green dress. Elizabeth Stewart was offering her mother’s uniform–from 1925. She had arranged for it to be professionally preserved , and it was in near pristine condition.
Gasp. Of course I said yes!
We chatted back and forth about Elizabeth’s own history with Girl Scouts. Her mother had led her troop, based in Silver Spring, Maryland. Elizabeth also offered her own badge sash and a photo of her mother welcoming her home from Camp May Flather.
Meet Girl Scout Adelaide Woodley
I began researching Elizabeth’s mother, Adelaide Woodley, for the display. It was surprisingly easy. In the first decades of the Girl Scout movement, founded in 1912, both the Washington Post and Evening Star newspapers had regular columns about Girl Scout activities.
Adelaide joined Washington Daisy Troop Number 26 in 1924. (The newspapers give the troop crest as a daisy, but it is clearly the holly emblem. Some troops changed crests over time.)
She earned her Dancer and Pioneer badges:
A highlight of her Girl Scout career had to be a May 1925 Court of Awards Ceremony. Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low was on hand to welcome First Lady Grace Coolidge as honorary national president. Lou Henry Hoover, former national president, handed out many of the badges herself.
By 1926, she had risen to the rank of second lieutenant (assistant leader) and was testing younger girls for their own merit badges. She even joined the Girl Scout drum and bugle corps.
To my enormous surprise, Adelaide’s name popped up in a November 8, 1925, Washington Herald clipping: “The pumpkin pie was given the most care and three girls, Adelaide Woodley, Betsy Garrett, and Florence Smith baked this.”
Yes, 100 YEAR AGO THIS MONTH!
That story sounded awfully familiar.
A Girl Scout Thanksgiving Dinner
For several years, I’ve done a November blog post about a special Thanksgiving meal that President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge enjoyed in 1925.
As honorary national president of the Girl Scouts, Mrs. Coolidge tried to incorporate Girl Scouts into White House events whenever possible. The Washington organization was in the midst of a $20,000 fund drive to purchase a permanent camp, and a Thanksgiving-related photo call would be great for publicity.
The Girl Scouts, she decided, would prepare and serve her holiday meal at the Girl Scout Little House, a model home in walking distance of the White House.
She ordered a Vermont turkey, from a family friend in East Montpelier, and the First Lady wanted it delivered—-and cooked—-by a Girl Scout. Leona Baldwin escorted her turkey to Washington by train.
In addition to the Coolidges, the guest list included Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hoover, who had acquired the Little House for the Girl Scouts; Mrs. May Flather, head of Girl Scouts in Washington, DC; J.J. Storrow, national president of the Boy Scouts; and Dean Sarah Arnold, national president of the Girl Scouts.
President and Mrs. Coolidge arrive at the Little House, November 7, 1925
National Photo/Library of Congress
A Thanksgiving They Will Never Forget
Aside from Leona, the other girls were local. Lucille Weber and Margaret Strong, for example, were hostesses. Marian Bates, of Troop 42, was in charge of circulating the cream and sugar, while Phyllis Adelman, also from Troop 42, had celery and carrot duty. Everyone was nervous.
Marian and I bumped each other, spilling cream on the President’s coat. We cleaned it off as best we could and Grace Coolidge was so kind. … Cal ignored the whole thing!
Recollections of Phyllis Adelman Larson, GSCNC Archives.
I have a good many photos from the Little House, many from scrapbooks that I scanned from the Girl Scouts of the USA archives.
Maybe, just maybe ….. I had to grab my scans …. and there she is.
On the far right, almost in the background, is Adelaide Woodley.
And she’s wearing the uniform we just put on display!!!!
On behalf of the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital, a big thank you to Elizabeth Stewart and her brother Andrew for this magnificent gift. The timing couldn’t be better!
© 2025 Ann Robertson, writer, editor, Girl Scout historian, but NOT a Girl Scout employee.