Françoise B. (Girl Scout from 10-16, Past Leader)

In 2013, Françoise was walking a chilly mountain path with her husband and some friends. As they passed blue and purple dots of wildflowers and yellowing grasses, she gathered a bundle and knotted her jacket to carry them. As she knotted it, she thought “This was the knot I learned in Girl Scouts, around 50 years ago.”

When Françoise was a 10 year old girl in 1949, there was a trend among girls to join the Girl Scouts. The leader of the Girl Scouts in Montreux (Françoise’s hometown) was very good at the time Françoise joined. Though Françoise doesn’t remember her name, she says that she was very sensible, and she promoted the vote for women as well as wanting them to get involved in politics. The girls in Françoise’s area were also a lot of fun, and even after all these years Françoise is still in contact with many of them.

Every year that she was a Girl Scout, rain or shine, Françoise was at Girl Scout camp. At Girl Scout camp they slept under tents, learned to sing, had nature nicknames (Françoise’s was a type of bird), learned many things about the nature and how to get along all by themselves.

There, they also learned to communicate using their arms (semaphore). In daylight, a girl would stand on a hill with arms outstretched, communicating to the girl on the next hill who would pass the message to the girl on the next hill.

Françoise also remember a prank she played on a counselor one year when she was in Girl Scouts. She and her best friend Silvia really disliked their counselor and wanted to get back at her for something so they drank lots and lots of water, filling their chamber pots to the brim over and over again, making the poor counselor empty the brimming pots.

They also played games where they were searching, running, spotting things, or question games where to go forward a step you have to answer a question correctly. After they played the games, they would cook their meals. Françoise remembers a meat and vegetable dish they used to make. To cook it they would make a deep hole in the earth, inside the hole they would place a saucepan filled with meat and vegetables, next they would keep it hot in the Earth until the meat became tender and delicious.

Françoise’s Girl Scout uniform consisted of a belt, a skirt (it was not common for women to wear pants back then) and a long-sleeved blue blouse. By the time she came back from Girl Scout camp, it was usually very dirty because she was having so much fun.

At that time, if you wanted to go further in the organization you had to take a little exam where you had to answer questions. After a few years, Françoise became  une chef de section or troop leader of a small group. To her group, she imparted the wisdom she had learned, that they were never alone, and there was always another scout or leader with them. They also learned how to cook and treat wounds.

In 1955, Françoise had to leave Girl Scouts to go to Germany. A few years after she left, the Girl Scout Program in Montreux fell apart.