On one of her visits to local schools, Ginger Wadsworth encouraged the Girl Scouts in the audience to be kind to whomever they meet.
“Look at the girl sitting next to you and realize she may be one of your closest friends for life,” said Wadsworth.
The self-proclaimed research junkie and author of several nonfiction books for children and young adults has just published another biographical book, this time on the life of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts of the USA, as the organization celebrates its 100th anniversary.
Wadsworth had no idea when she signed up to be a Brownie years ago that friends would be the most important benefit to being a Girl Scout.
To this day, Wadsworth still keeps in contact with her Brownie and Girl Scout friends she met decades ago.
“My Girl Scout friends are the reason I wrote this book,” said the author, who lives in Central County. “In Girl Scouts, it’s not all about badges necessarily, it’s the lifelong friends you’re creating. I say this to Girl Scouts in schools. This was what happened to me — I found my closest friends for life and it started with being in my troop.”
Longtime friend Sandy Smith remembers the girls participated in all kinds of activities: from hiking, camping, local community projects and, of course, selling Girl Scout cookies which were only 50 cents per box back then.
“Ginger was one of our trailblazers, storytellers and song leaders at the campfires,” Smith said. “The most significant events for me were the honor of becoming a Girl Scout, receiving my pin, earning badges and making lifelong friends.”
Smith said she’s proud of her friend for bringing to light the accomplishments of the Girl Scouts of USA founder.
Already an author of books about such notable women as Julia Morgan, Wadsworth thought of writing about Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. But she found that not much was known about the woman behind the Girl Scouts of the USA.
“We didn’t know who Juliette Gordon Low was and how important she was,” she said.
So Wadsworth set out to read letters written by Gordon Low — anything she could find about the GSUSA founder. She even went on a pilgrimage to Gordon Low’s birthplace in Savannah, Ga., where she discovered several personal tidbits about the founder. Like the fact that Gordon Low liked painting and was also a sculptor.
“In the garden are iron gates she welded,” Wadsworth said.
Once when she visited what is fondly known by Girl Scouts as “The Birthplace,” Wadsworth encountered hordes of young visitors dressed in brown.
“There must have a thousand Brownies there — it was packed for Brownie day,” she said.
Little-known facts Wadsworth found include: Gordon Low’s deafness and her death from breast cancer in 1927.
“The thing to emphasize to young readers is that you can accomplish anything you want even if you’re handicapped,” Wadsworth said.
There were also the quirky facts about Gordon Low.
“I don’t think Girl Scouts, contemporary ones or from my era, knew a lot of things about her,” Wadsworth said. “She had empathy for animals, dogs and birds, she traveled with them from Savannah back to her various homes in England.”
But all research aside, the main thrust of the book was not only to honor Gordon Low but also to pay tribute to her loyal friends.
“When I found out about the 100th anniversary, I wrote the dedication before doing any research for the book,” Wadsworth said. “It’s not uncommon for me to write the dedication first because I like to think about the group of people whom it’s honoring. It’s sort of the driving force behind the book.”
Readers will get to know a bit about the author’s own experience with the Brownies and Girl Scouts in the 1950s and 1960s and the friendships she cultivated along the way.
Many of her friends will be at Wadsworth’s signing for “First Girl Scout,” at a bookstore from her childhood in La Jolla.
Ann Aydelotte remembers the time she and Wadsworth and friends earned their swimming badges and went on camping trips in the area. Just as memorable was the bike trip the girls took to Canada and back in 1960 where they camped at national parks along the way.
“The most important thing that Scouting provided us were friendships with a dynamic group of girls and the leaders and adults that were our role models for our future endeavors,” said Aydelotte.
“What we did have was something special,” said Daira Paulson. “We were a group of girls that scouted together from the time we began as Brownies to when we were girls graduating from high school. How many Girl Scout troops have reunions some 35 plus years later where almost every member was able to attend?”
