Tradition holds that the president-elect spends the night before his inauguration at Blair House, the “President’s Guest House” at 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Blair House (Carol Highsmith)
But what do you know about the Blairs? The family produced several prominent American statesmen—and one very spunky Girl Scout leader, Edith Blair Staton.
Edith’s grandfather, Montgomery Blair (1813-1883), studied law at my alma mater, Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, and his most famous client was the fugitive slave Dred Scott. Blair moved to Washington in 1852 and became Lincoln’s Postmaster General in 1861.
The family’s “country house,” Falkland, was the earliest residence in Silver Spring, Maryland. Today, Montgomery Blair is the namesake of one of the largest high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Edith arrived at Blair House on September 6, 1896, and was the last baby born at the residence. She married a young naval officer, Adolphus Staton, on July 28, 1917.
(Edith Blair Staton, 1916 passport photo)
While her husband was at sea, the young bride took the helm of a Girl Scout troop. When the girls were preparing for their first camping trip and realized they had no bedrolls or other equipment, Edith went to her hope chest, stored in her attic of her parents’ home, and took her brand new wedding linen into the woods!
Edith threw herself into Girl Scouting and met founder Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah in 1922, where Daisy taught her how to stand on her head.
When Girl Scout leaders decided to adapt the British Brownie program for younger girls in the United States, Edith was recruited to help launch the program. She organized the first Brownie “Pow-Wow” for prospective leaders in November 1922. She had the perfect venue for a large meeting–Manor Country Club. Her uncle’s club was about to open and the meeting offered a good dress rehearsal opportunity for the staff.
Top: Brownie membership pin (1920s-1930s)
Left: Great Brown Owl (leader, 1930s)
Right: Tawny Owl (assistant leader, 1930s)
Edith Blair Staton thus became the first Great Brown Owl, the main Brownie leader for the United States.
Edith remained active in Girl Scouting for most of her adult life. She was a member of the advisory committee for the Rockwood National Campand served as president of the District of Columbia council.
Edith passed away in 2001, at the age of 104. She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to her husband, Admiral Staton.
What issue topped the agenda of the 1969 National Council session?
Pants. The membership spoke, and they wanted uniforms with pants.
Responding to waves of requests from girls, GSUSA announced that it would remain a uniformed movement and update girl uniforms. The most requested item? Pants. Active girls—not to mention their mothers—did not want to sacrifice movement for modesty.
Official Uniform Catalog from 1963
Fashion Design, 1997-2011
Designing uniforms is a multifaceted process. The overall design needs to be visually unifying and reflect contemporary fashion without falling for passing fads that will shorten their appeal. The cut must flatter a wide range of body types, the fabric needs to be suitable for multiple climates, and the color palette needs to enhance skin tones ranging from very fair to very dark. Decorations and trims are kept to a minimum, both to keep costs down as well as to not compete with official insignia.
Senior Uniform, 1960-1971
First up was the smallest age group—Senior Girl Scouts. These high schoolers were still wearing the two-piece skirt suit introduced in 1960. Made out of a deep green sharkskin cotton fabric, the brightly colored uniform trim indicated the wearer’s area of concentration. Troops focused on International Friendship, for example, wore yellow ties and hat cords, Wing troops orange, and Homemaker troops turquoise. This iconic uniform, topped with an Overseas-style hat, was beloved by fans of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, but fell out of favor with the bell-bottom and suede fringe-wearing girls of the late 1960s. Girls had quickly nicknamed the suit the “Stewardess uniform,” but by now it was no longer a compliment. Besides, even the flight attendants had moved on to trendier styles. Seniors themselves had their own ideas about a uniform; they wanted pants—and mini-skirts, too.
After considering suggestions, designs, and even samples sent by girls, the National Equipment Service (NES) settled on two versions of a sleek step-in style A-line dress that buttoned up the front. For feedback, they took the uniform to the girls.
Manufacturers created samples in sizes 6 through 20 and shipped them to Rockwood National Camp and the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in Savannah. Visiting Seniors of all shapes and sizes tried on the samples and completed feedback cards. They had a definite preference for one version and one shade of green, but indicated that they wanted heavier fabric, a belt, and pants. Designers made more revisions and presented the result to the National Executive Committee for final approval. NES was still not convinced of the need for pants, but they conceded defeat on the matter.
Senior Uniform, 1971-1980
Ultimately, the girls were rewarded with pants in the same green cotton poplin fabric, but the semi-flared legs hardly qualified as bell-bottoms. The ensemble included a soft beret made of the same fabric, a tab tie, and a formidable green leather belt that was 1.5” wide with adjustment holes running the entire length.
But the most notable feature was the dress’s hemline—or, rather, the lack of one. After endless debates among focus groups and survey responses, GSUSA gave up trying to settle on the appropriate length. The dress was sold unhemmed, with a hang-tag reading: “The Official GS Uniform with the Unofficial Hemline.” If girls wanted mini-skirted uniforms, Headquarters seemed to say, let parents deal with the matter. Many Senior Girl Scouts were accustomed to sewing their own clothes and turned the new dress into a short tunic to be worn over the new pants. Just how many ditched the pants once out their front door is unknown.
And to really be mod, GSUSA created a line of hippy, crunchy-granola inspired casual pieces at the same time. Can’t you just imagine Marcia Brady or Laurie Partridge in these funky frocks?
GSUSA pieces for the fashion-forward Senior Girl Scout in 1971
Nope, me either. And if you look closely at the 1973 image showing the new uniforms, that spiffy green cape is marked “SALE,” although it doesn’t come through well in the picture. Guess these duds were a dud.
The other age levels received new uniforms in 1973. Instead of a single dress, Brownies, Juniors, and Cadettes each had their choice of five or six mix-and-match pieces, that included jumpers, pants, shorts, cotton blouses, and hideous polyester double-knit turtleneck bodysuits that were hot, itchy, had a stiff plastic zipper that grabbed your hair, and featured a snap crotch that perpetually pinched your privates.
Catalog descriptions of the new clothing reflected the lingo of the time, emphasizing choice, individuality, and liberation:
1973 Catalog Copy Introducing New Uniforms
New space-age materials meant less wrinkling and less ironing.
The new styles included several pieces for each age level, creating another point of consistency.
Each level had a tie that snapped together. No more arguments about how to tie a neckerchief or which way the ends should point. The polyester, turtleneck bodysuit was high fashion at the time, not to mention indestructible and UNCOMFORTABLE. Can clothing cause PTSD? Because if so, these bodysuits would have.
The new Cadette uniform included the very first vest, instead of a badge sash. They were made from dark green felt, and some people mistakenly think they were homemade.
This week a new collection of uniform pieces debuted. So far, they are targeted toward the older age levels.
Hopefully GSUSA will never repeat the snap-zip-bodysuit debacle of the 1970s.
However, I can’t let this topic (or any topic, really) go by without mentioning a Rockwood connection!
The former Rockwood National Girl Scout Camp, located just outside Washington DC, hosted Yoshiko Nagata, the director of the US-sponsored Okinawa Girl Scout Council. She held that post from the council’s inception in 1954. When Okinawa returned to Japanese control in 1972, she continued as director of the new Girl Scouts of Japan..
Nagata-san, as she was typically addressed, visited Rockwood in 1956 as part of a three-month training trip across the United States.
Okinawa Girl Scout director Yoshiko Nagata (left) with Rockwood National Camp director Ida May Born, April 1956
She was delighted to meet the girls camping at Rockwood during her visit. Brownie Troop 266 of Fairfax County, Virginia, even had the pleasure of inviting Nagata-san to lunch one Saturday. She taught the Brownies several songs in Japanese, and they reciprocated with their own favorites.
Troops from Massachusetts and Gladstone, NJ also met Nagata-san and decided they wanted to pursue service projects that would benefit the Girl Scouts of Okinawa.
Every month, Rockwood staff compiled a report covering groups in camp and other interesting developments.
One sentence in the April 1956 report leaped off the page and went streaking around my office (a common occurrence in this work-at-home time) until I recognized it:
Mrs. Frances Faeth joined Mrs. Nagata for her last day at Rockwood.
It has been several months since we departed on our tour to Okinawa, so perhaps the name doesn’t ring a bell for you.
But this whole series about Girl Scouts in Okinawa began with a donation of three scrapbooks from American Girl Scout troops living in Okinawa in the late 1950s.
The scrapbooks had been Fran’s. Her family generously presented them to the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital.
One of three scrapbooks from the Girl Scouts in Okinawa
This truly was a round trip excursion, finishing back where we began.
Many Girl Scout troops spend several years working toward a “Big Trip.”
Often it is to one of the World Centers, located in London, Switzerland, Mexico, and India. Perhaps the destination is New York City, Washington DC, or Savannah, Georgia.
The Trip guides badgework, fundraising, camping and field trips that gradually build skills and cooperative behavior.
Planning a Big Trip to Washington DC, from Rockwood Film Strip
For the troop leaders, excitement is tempered by anxiety. How do you take twenty or so girls to the other side of the country; or the world?
(Plus, Girl Scout regulations specify that you must bring home the same number of girls that departed with you. Same number, I suppose you could swap some girls. Or at least threaten to.)
But relax, other volunteers and staff members will help you prepare the girls and yourself. At one time, trip plans had to be approved by the local Girl Scout council.
The Big Trip will make memories that last a lifetime, most of them good!
So, in a belated nod to Leader Appreciation Day, here is 1955 poem composed by a New York leader who took 64 seventh graders on a three-day trip to Washington, DC. And she survived!
Washington 1955 (Leaders’ Ditty)
Washington when Spring is here, to some may seem to be A gay time, a play time, a time that’s fancy free.
With the blossoms and the buildings and the beauty of the city To wander o’er and ponder o’er; and it really seems a pity
Or so you’d think, to have to steer wherever you may go A gaggle of, or straggle of, Girl Scouts both fast and slow.
How very wrong such thoughts would be, the girls add to the fun, But have no doubts, 64 Girl Scouts can keep you on the run.
They lose their buddies, sing strange songs and roam far and near And history is a mystery to most of them I fear.
Senior Girl Scouts at Mt. Vernon, from Rockwood filmstrip
They stroll around Mount Vernon, while you revel in it too, The FBI stands way high in their list of things to view.
Memorials and monuments and museums, where they see Two-headed babies, gems of rubies – strange things you will agree.
But those they rank as equal to the homes of famous men, Or the Capitol. They lap it all up – want to go again.
But see these green-clad forms stand still when the Guard is changing o’er Way, that’s a sound of girls you’re proud of, now and evermore.
And though they give you headaches, if you’re honest, you must say You’re glad you went, not sad you went, and you loved just every day.
A group of Senior Girl Scouts in perfect uniform is a beautiful sight to behold and Mr. Robert Kennedy evidently thought so too. The girls were standing on the roadside in front of Mr. Kennedy’s home waiting for their stalled bus to be repaired when Mr. Kennedy drove to the main road. He stopped his car—greeted the girls and shook hands with many of them—asked where they were from and then invited them into his home for a tour. He apologized because his wife was not there and he had to go on to his work, but left them with a maid to act as a tour guide. Those girls are convinced that their uniforms helped them to have this experience. (July 1964)
An impromptu recording session
Recently a staff member began to play a tape recording made at Shadowbrook All States encampment. This recording was of the favorite songs of the campers. Gradually the Manor House Lobby and stair steps filled with girls and the girls began to sing with the record. Then they, too, made recordings. Two fathers and a bus driver joined in with the fun. One father acted as sound engineer and the other held the microphone. Forty of the sixty girls in camp attended the impromptu sing. (September 1963)
Not without our leader
A leader, as she got off the bus, said to the staff member standing nearby—“Watch those girls. They are trying to hide my wheel chair as they take it off the bus. They think that I do not know that they have it here. I did not realize that I had muscular dystrophy when we started planning this trip three years ago. When I refused to go on this long planned adventure they would have none of it and then, when I said I would stay on the bus and rest as they went sightseeing they did not want that either. I dislike holding them back and tiring them with pushing my chair, but-no one could resist them. They even have a secret kaper chart scheduling aides to help me. They don’t know that I know about that too.” What a wonderful troop of Seniors that group was! Mature, capable, dependable, and determined to keep their leader from becoming tired and frustrated. (July 1964)
Ready for the Rascal
For two days in succession a tent was raided and the contents of suitcases thrown about. We feared that neighborhood boys were up to mischief. On the third day members of the staff took turns sitting quietly in the unit doing office work. The vandal was found and identified. It was one of those attractive and annoying rascals-a raccoon. Our campers enjoy hearing about their escapades. The owners of the raided suitcases now know that we mean it when we say that food should be kept in covered containers.
Girl Scout postcard, 1946
This happened the third week of August. Another troop from the same city arrived the fourth week of the month and were to live in the same unit. One girl immediately asked to be placed in the tent visited by the raccoons because she had a camera with a flash attachment. (August 1963)
The Expert
The Caretaker’s granddaughter came for a Brownie Holiday with her troop. They stayed at Carolyn Cottage and she immediately claimed a top bunk. This troop had few questions to ask since the granddaughter had already furnished all the necessary information. (May 1961)
Brownies on Bunk Beds, 1954
Do you have a Rockwood story? Please let me know.
I have already heard from that confident Brownie, who wanted to share her version of that weekend!
Exhibits, that is. That probably isn’t the best headline for a history blog!
The Archives and History Committee recently changed the exhibit at the Nation’s Capital Council headquarters.
After two months on exhibit, we dismantled “Badges and Biscuits.” This theme covered Girl Guide badges and product sales. It also coincided with our cookie sale and World Thinking Day (February 22).
Girl Guide Badges
The badges date to the late 1950s and early 1960s. They had originally been presented to the former Rockwood national Girl Scout camp by visiting Girl Guides. When that facility closed in 1978, GSUSA left them behind, and they made their way into our council’s collection.
I discovered them wrapped in paper and shoved in a box a few years ago, and I have been looking for an opportunity to share them.
Unfortunately, the foreign badges had been affixed to lengths of burlap with some sort of space-age polymer. I used heat, alcohol, acetone, a jackhammer, and sticks of dynamite to remove them. (OK, not the last two, but I was seriously contemplating it.)
After nearly a week, I had them all removed. I remounted them on 12″x12″ scrapbook paper so that they could fit into frames for display now and stored into scrapbook-sized envelopes after.
I was delighted with the results:
Girl Guide Biscuits
We filled one display case with the Girl Guide badges, the other was devoted to Girl Guide cookie sales. We also had some Girl Guide cookie patches to tie the theme together.
I learned a lot from Girl Guide websites and historians. I stuck largely to English-language sources, so the examples are drawn from a small number of countries.
UK and Ireland
Nope, not in the UK
British Girl Guides do not sell cookies. The Girl Guiding historians I contacted seemed quite proud of this fact.
In contrast, Irish Girl Guides only began selling packets of chocolate chip biscuits in fall 2017. Officials introduced the new program to help “change the imbalance of the number of women in decision-making position across the various sectors of society such as businesses, companies, and boardrooms around Ireland.”
Irish Cookies
Irish Girl Guides
Canada
Canadian Girl Guides have two categories of cookies (sandwich and mint). One is sold in the fall; the other in the spring.
They also have an impressive cookie badge curriculum that includes lessons on the history of their cookie sales and samples of vintage posters, cookie boxes, and other memorabilia.
Canadian Girl Guides
Australia and New Zealand
Australian Girl Guides have sold cookies for decades, but they are limited to one weekend across the entire country. Think of one mega booth sale.
Australian Girl Guide Cookies
Girl Guides in New Zealand kicked off their first biscuit sale in 1957, which grew to selling 28 million boxes per year. But March 2019 marked the last national Girl Guide biscuit sale in New Zealand. The organization plans to seek new fundraising programs for the future as biscuit sales provided one-third of its budget.
Vintage New Zealand Girl Guide poster
Keep following the Girl Scout History Project to see our latest installation!
I have long been fascinated by former GSUSA staff member Oleda Schrottky. But when I recently found this vintage photograph, I was in love.
Oleda Schrottky in costume (presumably), Macy Center, 1928 (Acme Newsphoto)
From 1921 to 1964, Schrottky was the Girl Scout “play lady.” She reluctantly took this position and over time crafted a one-of-a-kind job description uniquely tailored to her talents and convictions.
Why is Oleda Schrottky the coolest Girl Scout ever?
First, there is her name: Oleda Schrottky. Try saying it aloud a few times. Doesn’t it feel and sound fascinating?
From the Midwest to Massachusetts and Manhattan
Oleda Schrottky was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1894. She was a highly educated woman for the era, attending Lawrence College, the University of Minnesota, and New York University.
She established herself as a well-regarded speech and drama instructor at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She frequently performed in professional productions, especially with the Provincetown Players.
She Admitted to Misunderstanding the Girl Scouts
In 1921, the Provincetown troupe debuted a new play in New York City, The Inheritors, written by Susan Glaspell and directed by Jasper Deeter. Twenty-seven Oleda memorably played the lead character’s grandmother.
Jane Deeter Rippin (GSUSA)
After one show, Jasper introduced Oleda to his sister, Jane Rippin, who had greatly enjoyed her performance on several evenings.
Oleda was later astonished when Jasper commented that his sister was the executive director of the Girl Scouts. She could not believe that the aristocratic theater patron, dressed in an evening gown and furs, could possibly be a Girl Scout. She protested:
They wear khakis; they wear black khaki stockings; they wear the most awful-looking hats; they wear great big belts; they have got stuff hanging around like ropes and knives and they march. They are always marching and they are camping, they sleep in the poison ivy, they knock trees down, they dig holes, they cook meals. They are dreadful!
Leader (Winter 1985)
Obviously, she eventually changed her mind.
She Forged Her Own Path
Jane Deeter Rippin sought to hire professionals in the fine arts to train troop leaders in drama, music, and more. She offered Oleda a salary of $150 per month “and a lot of opposition.”
As promised, many volunteers and staff resisted the new initiative, but Oleda stood firm and eventually gained respect and her programs were praised. She originally meant to stay just a year, but 12 months rapidly turned into 40 years.
Play written by Oleda Schrottky
As Secretary of Plays and Pageants, Oleda wrote scripts, guidebooks, and ceremonies, and she travelled across the country helping adults and girls perform.
Her training courses included lessons on set construction, costume design, and the importance of understanding a play’s context. She published guides for Scout’s Own ceremonies, “Simple Dramatics for Girl Scout Troop Meetings,” and plays such as “Lend a Hand,” “Milestones: A Girl Scout Pageant in Seven Episodes Based on the Life of Juliette Low,” and “A Pot of Red Geraniums: A Christmas Play in Two Acts.”
While she insisted that any number of girls, even a handful, were sufficient for a dramatics program, Oleda preferred to stage her own pageants on a grand scale.
The photo above was taken during a dramatics course for leaders given at the Edith Macy Training School in 1928. All 150 students participated in “Nottingham Fair,” a pageant based on the Robin Hood story.
Oleda became an in-demand speaker across the United States. Her presentations were noted for their insight, humor, and ability to mobilize civic clubs and parent-teacher groups to support youth recreation and community theater.
She Helped Dedicate Rockwood
Oleda organized the dedication of Rockwood National Camp in 1952, combining it with a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Girl Scouting. She wrote a new pageant for the event and found a unique way to include thousands of Girl Scouts in a ceremony held at a relatively small venue.
Councils across the country were encouraged to hold their own community-wide campfire ceremony over the summer, make a bundle from the remains of the fire, attach a special message, and send it to Rockwood. No detail was left to chance:
These bundles of sticks should not exceed 12” in length; each piece of wood approximately one inch in diameter. We experimented and the simplest way is to make a cloth bag, of unbleached muslin or light-weight duck, with a draw string, then use mailing tape.
Twenty-nine bundles arrived in time for the dedication.
Oleda Schrottky examines bundles of sticks mailed to Rockwood National Camp (GSUSA archives)
She Retired from Work, But Not from Her Mission
Oleda officially retired from GSUSA in 1957. But she continued to work with young women and maintained a busy schedule as a guest speaker.
Too many of our children today just sit and want to be entertained. They must learn that they themselves have resources for entertaining.
–Oleda Schrottky, 1964
She passed away in August 1969, after giving presentations as recently as that May. She also had a speaking engagement booked for November 1969.
She Believed in the Importance of the Liberal Arts
I wonder how Oleda would fare in today’s Girl Scouting. We supposedly are fighting against a public image of preferring crafts over camping. Increasingly, Girl Scouting is focusing on developing skills in STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math.
These are undoubtedly valuable skills, especially in the 21st century.
But as a social scientist married to an architect and with a daughter in art school, I cannot ignore the value of non-STEM topics as well.
I hope we can find a balance that includes all of these subjects.
Otherwise, maybe I’ll have to wear my own floaty Maid Marian dress to the next Maker Fair.
I was so excited by a new item that popped up on eBay earlier this month.
Designated as volume 1, number 1, The Girl Scouts’ Rally Bulletin is the public record of the first national convention, which was held in Washington in 1915. It was compiled by Edna Colman, the local commissioner.
In 1915 local troops put on a demonstration for convention delegates, including this representation of Justice, Liberty, and Peace.
This 32-page booklet includes highlights from troops across the country, including Washington. It also has a uniform price list (hats, $1.25; middy blouses, $1.75, etc.), and the names and addresses of troop leaders from every state.
The Nation’s Capital council archival holdings are surprisingly thin on the early history of Girl Scouting in Washington, DC. While council consolidation has brought the records of many legacy councils into a central location, our historical records are scattered across multiple sites. It takes some ingenuity, detailed searching, and sometimes pure luck, to track down information about our earliest days.
The main problem is that our early history is so closely entwined with that of the national movement. The first troops in and around the District of Columbia were managed out of the Munsey Building, where Juliette Gordon Low established the first national headquarters in 1913. Records from those years are more likely to be found at the JGL Birthplace or the First Headquarters in Savannah.
Cover of 1923 booklet about the Little House
After national headquarters moved to New York, the national Little House opened in Washington, and the local council rented one room of the house to use as its headquarters. When the Little House closed in 1945, some of its files went to New York, but others went to Rockwood, a national Girl Scout camp just across the District of Columbia—Maryland border. When Rockwood closed, its files and fixtures went everywhere … but that is another story.
Surprisingly, some of the best information I’ve found about our early years comes from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in Iowa. Lou Henry Hoover’s role in the first years of Girl Scouting cannot be understated, and archivists there have been very generous about scanning documents for me.
Another source, the first Girl Scout magazine, The Rally (1917-20), published a regular column about the Girl Scouts of Washington.
But back to eBay. The asking price for this booklet? Nearly $600!! Pardon while I grab the smelling salts. This was a 30-day auction, now ended, and the price was slashed several times. The final price was $299.99. It did not sell.
At first, I was furious. This was highway robbery! Holding our history hostage for a huge ransom! Unfair!
Then I looked closer. The listing included numerous photos of various pages and ended with the statement:
Early enough, very rare and important enough to be a museum piece according to my research. I could not find another one like it. I could only find a PDF version at Girl Scouts University, Girl Scout History & Preservation. RESEARCH IT!
So I did.
Girl Scout University pin
The website is still up for Girl Scout University, another promising idea that GSUSA quietly abandoned and allowed to die of neglect.
I downloaded a good-quality PDF that added several new pages to our history.
The thing is, even if I had an extra $300 or $600 sitting around, there is no way I could justify the cost. I see my task as documenting history, not necessarily collecting examples of everything Girl Scout. While it is important to have artifacts that can be held and experienced, we wouldn’t pass around a century-old, original report anyway. We would scan it, lock it away carefully, and work with a copy. Which is exactly what we now have. And it didn’t cost us $300.
A few days after I first saw this auction, I received a priceless donation of original documents from essentially the same time period.
Tomorrow, January 20, 2018, Montgomery County Parks will host an open house at Rockwood Manor Park in Potomac, Maryland, from 11 am to 3 pm. Open Houses are offered several times a year for brides and other people considering the venue for an event.
The Manor House. Photo by Mark Bowles.
Rockwood was a national Girl Scout camp from 1938 to 1978. The neighborhood was largely rural in the camp’s early years, but as new houses and neighborhoods expanded, Rockwood staff reached out to make new friends. One open house was held in 1950.
Washington Post, March 17, 1950.
Visitors in 1950 might have found a troop preparing meals, a family camping together, or perhaps Brownies splashing in the stream.
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While some neighbors were not pleased to discover latrines near their homes (and they are long gone!), many groups near the camp considered it an asset. Boy Scouts, church groups, and schools all used the facilities for meetings and occasional retreats.
One of the most successful Rockwood-community partnerships began in 1959, when a group of five women from the town of Potomac asked if they could use Rockwood’s commercial kitchen to mash potatoes for the 1,000 guests expected to attend their church’s yearly community dinner.
Staff working in Rockwood’s Kitchen, 1950s (GSUSA/NHPC)
The meetings of the “Potato Mashers Guild” became so popular that many of the ladies offered to be on “stand-by” to volunteer as needed at the camp. The ladies hosted birthday parties for Guild members at Rockwood and even picnicked one summer at Rockwood director Ida May Born’s beach house.
Rockwood kitchen equipment abandoned in June 1983. Is that the potato peeler in the center? (Photo by Patricia Cornish)
Another strong relationship developed with Potomac Elementary School. Students would come to Rockwood for science lessons and nature walks, while Rockwood’s kitchen staff would pitch in at the school cafeteria if needed.
After weeks of sub-freezing temperatures here in Washington, DC, tomorrow is forecast to reach nearly 60º. Seems like an ideal day to visit Rockwood, located at 11001 MacArthur Blvd, Potomac, Maryland 20854.
Our Archives and History Committee lost one of its original members last month, Jane Toal. I never met Jane, she had gone into assisted living around the time I joined the Committee, but I heard her name often from other members.
Now that I’ve had a chance to read her obituary and read some of the tributes to her, I especially regret never making her acquaintance. Her life story is a testament to Girl Scouts and STEM programs.
Jane Nicolet was born in 1921 and grew up in Riverdale, Maryland, outside Washington. She joined a Girl Scout troop in 1931, at age 9½. She seems to have seized every opportunity that came her way: she was in the first local Senior troop, led by Lucy Knox. The troop helped prepare Rockwood National Center to receive its first campers in 1937. Lucy and other girls spent many weekends reupholstering furniture at Rockwood and sleeping on the floor of Carolyn Cottage.
Jane also was involved in the activities of the Little House, including once serving a meal to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Eleanor Roosevelt (second from right) enjoys a “15 cent lunch” in the Little House dining room, 1933 (Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress)
She quickly became a regular figure at Camp May Flather, living in each of the various units and co-editing the camp newspaper, the Mountain Log.
Washington Post, June 11, 1939.
Jane was awarded the prestigious Golden Eaglet on June 10, 1939.
She left the Washington area for college, first to Oberlin College and then to Cornell University, where she earned a master’s degree in biochemistry. Upon graduation, she took a job at Rutgers University. After a brief marriage, she led an Intermediate troop in New Jersey.
Jane returned to Washington in 1947 to accept a research position at the National Institutes of Health. She spent the next 30 years conducting structural studies of DNA and RNA.
She bought a boat in 1950 and taught herself to sail. When she heard about a Mariner Girl Scout troop forming in the area she signed on. She stayed with the Mariner program for 27 years, taking full advantage of the nearby Chesapeake Bay. She proudly wore her Mariner uniform for official events and led a Bethesda-based troop from 1964 to 1977.
Over the years, Jane kept sailing, but she did add to her outside interests. She rode with the Iron Bridge Hunt and the Howard County Hunt until her 90th birthday and was an active member of the Trail Riders of Today. She was also part of the devoted crew that maintains the historic carousel at Glen Echo park. For decades, she rallied troops that turned out to polish the brass on the carousel before it opens for the season.
Jane organizes Girl Scouts polishing the Glen Echo Carousel, 2008 (photo courtesy of Jennifer Manguera)
Jane Toal’s homemade Mariner doll.
It is a shame that a woman once so involved in our Council’s History programs never was able to visit our now two-year old Program Center in Frederick, Maryland. But we do have a homemade doll that she donated years ago. With bright red hair, it even looks a bit like her.
The doll is prominently displayed at the Center, a small way to keep Jane involved in Girl Scout history.
Special thank you to Julie Lineberry, whose previous profile of Jane was essential for this post.
