Angie H. (Past Girl Scout and Troop Leader)

A group of girls dances garbed in vibrant clothing. Their hands and feet swirl in time to the Tarentella. The crowd at the church goes wild. The girls are around all around 13-15 years old, among them is Angie in a dress she handmade especially for the occasion.

Angie was a Girl Scout in the 1940s. It is 2013 now and Angie doesn’t remember much from her time at Girl Scouts  besides earning a few badges, going to some court of awards ceremonies and dancing the Tarentella with her troop. Angie’s memories are more intact however when it comes to around 10 years later when she was the troop leader for a collection of girls in upstate New York.

It all started when a mother at Angie’s church came up with an idea. She wanted to form a Brownie troop and wanted Angie to be her co-leader. Neither of them had had any prior experience of Girl Scouting (besides Angie’s few years as a Girl Scout) so they did it all "by the book". They told the 27 7-yearolds what was expected of them as Brownies, which were things like “You always have to have a ‘Brownie taste’ before you say you dislike something” and "You should follow the 'Brownie Way'."

When they first started, Angie’s troop didn’t have any uniforms yet, so they came in whatever clothes they wanted, which more often then not turned out to be a copy of whatever their leaders had worn the last meeting. It all started on the day when Angie went to the meeting wearing a little scarf; the next meeting all the little Brownies came in wearing scarves. This went on until they finally got their uniforms. They used to all attend mass on Sundays together in uniform so that everyone knew that they were the local Brownie troop and later, the Girl Scout troop.

When the troop used to travel to places like the park they would always have to scrunch together in cars, with about 9 people per car. The troop’s favorite car to ride in was Angie’s blue and white Ford Convertible. With 5 girls in the back seat and 3 girls in the front with Angie, Angie definitely thinks that the police of today would have been on her case for safety reasons.

Angie also remembers the first time she took the girls camping. They went out to a big one-room cabin in March. It was so cold that there was snow still frozen around the cabin area.

The good news for the girls was that their dinner was a hot dish called Brownie Stew. However, Angie remembers one little girl who did not take the Brownie Stew as welcome news.

Little Girl: Remember, I don’t like onions!

Angie: We’ll see about that. You probably won’t even know they are in there. They are not in there, they are not in there.

After the girl walked away Angie continued on with the recipe, added onions and fed the girls the stew.

Little Girl: I can taste the onions.

Angie: Do you like it? Do you think it tastes good?

Little Girl: It’s okay…

Angie: You see what you’ve done. You’ve tasted it. You’ve had your Brownie taste and you like it. So now, don't tell me you don’t like onions because you do like onions.

When it was time for the girls to go to bed after dinner, Angie had them unroll their pre-made bedrolls (not sleeping bags) and they changed into their pajamas in the cold air.

Angie and the other leader had made the girls change in the cold air to teach them the Brownie way, but Angie remembers that she, the other leader and the mothers decided to  cheat and just went to sleep in their clothes. Luckily they woke up earlier then the girls so that the girls were none the wiser. They were only staying one night so after the girls woke up, they packed and boarded the cars.

Angie and her family left New York for California 5 years later and that was the end of her time as a troop leader of 27 girls. She still thinks that saying yes to being a troop leader was one of the best choices she ever made.

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.