Stacy A. Cordery

Thank you!

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:37 +0000

At last! The day arrived! Yesterday, 16 February 2012, was the official release date of my Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts. It is unimaginably exciting to hold in your hands the culmination of years of hard work. You faithful blog readers have been with me for around one hundred posts [...]

A Romance for All Time

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:00:15 +0000

As I was doing the research for my Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts, I paid close attention to the relationship between Juliette’s parents, Nellie and Willie Gordon. Juliette’s own marriage was rocky–in fact, marrying William Mackay Low was the worst decision of her life. I wrestled with how that happened. [...]

What Happened to the Trefoil Patent?

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:00:55 +0000

Not long after Juliette Gordon Low brought the Girl Scouts to the United States, she created this badge: It was based on the trefoil used by Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts, and because of that, it clearly linked her Girl Scouts to the larger Scouting family. On 22 November 1913, she applied for a patent, [...]

Lou Henry Hoover: “An Oak in a Flower Pot”

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:00:45 +0000

Juliette Gordon Low called Lou Henry Hoover “an oak in a flower pot.” Some of you astute readers will know that this evocative phrase is Emily Bronte’s, from her 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. Bronte suggested that an oak could never thrive in the “shallow soil” of the flower pot. “When I think,” Juliette wrote of Lou [...]

Daisy’s New England

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:00:40 +0000

Today’s blog is meant to provide a context for understanding Juliette Gordon Low’s two best friends, Abby Lippitt Hunter and Mary Gale Carter Clarke. You will meet these good women in just less than one month, when Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts is published. One thing that is different about [...]

Guest blog: Margaret Seiler, Daisy’s Grandniece

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:33 +0000

In my family, Juliette Gordon Low is known as “Aunt Daisy.” My mother, Margaret Gordon Seiler  (“Peggy”), is now 88 years old and the last surviving niece of Daisy Low. She’s also the last little girl to  grow up in the beautiful house in Savannah that locals call “The Birthplace.” “It’s my birthplace, too!” my mother [...]

Nellie Gordon & Tomochichi’s Memorial

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:00:33 +0000

On December 16, 2011, the subject of my blog was William Washington Gordon I, Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low’s grandfather. I mentioned the memorial to him located on Wright Square in Savannah, Georgia, and concluded with a teaser about another story that connects the Gordon memorial with Daisy’s mother, Nellie Kinzie Gordon. I thought I’d briefly tell that amazing [...]

Daisy’s Favorite Actress: Helena Modjeska

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:00:41 +0000

She inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She was a friend of William Tecumseh Sherman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Singer Sargent, Victor Hugo, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Oscar Wilde. President Grover Cleveland, Gustave Dore and even her sublime colleagues Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry came to see her artistry. Who was she? Helena Modjeska, Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low’s [...]

Guest blog: Shana Corey & “Here Come the Girl Scouts!”

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:00:18 +0000

Note from Stacy: It is not just the holiday spirit that tempts me to share my blog with Shana Corey, author of many wonderful books for children. It’s also the fact that her hot-off-the-press book, Here Come the Girl Scouts! is a really wonderful read and I want you all to know about it. Enjoy this [...]

Daisy’s Grandfather: William Washington Gordon

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 11:00:05 +0000

Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low is descended from a goodly number of individuals who believed that, as George Washington once wrote, “happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.” No one personified that connection like William Washington Gordon I, Juliette Low’s paternal grandfather. In recognition of all he did for the city of Savannah and the state [...]

The Wisdom of Teachers

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:00:49 +0000

Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low attended a boarding school in New York City when she was in her teens. The school was run by two sisters, Matilde and Fanny Charbonnier, known to the students as “The Chars.” Daisy enjoyed them both, but never so much as when she encountered them unexpectedly in Egypt in 1891. “Who [...]

Widows and Orphans and Andrew Low

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 11:00:11 +0000

Just six months after his father Andrew died and left him a very large inheritance, William Mackay Low married Juliette “Daisy” Gordon. It was a complicated courtship and Daisy neither liked nor trusted the man who was to be her father-in-law. Andrew Low had emigrated as a teenager from Scotland to Savannah, Georgia. Eventually, he [...]

Girl Scout CEO: Abby Porter Leland & Thanksgiving

Stacy A. Cordery — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:07:49 +0000

Juliette Low possessed a talent that every CEO covets: the ability to identify and hire the right person for the job. Over and over again, Daisy located people with the ideal combination of attributes to help the fledgling Girl Scout organization grow. Among her best picks was Dr. Abby Porter Leland, who served as the [...]

On Parallel Tracks in the Progressive Era

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:00:51 +0000

Louise de Koven Bowen was one of Chicago’s most influential and important women. Born into wealth, Bowen dedicated her life to helping the city’s poor. She was a friend of Jane Addams and a major financial backer of Hull House. Because she was a leading Chicagoan, she also knew members of Chicago’s founding family, the [...]

From the Houston Convention

Stacy A. Cordery — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:22:26 +0000

This Friday morning I am in Houston, Texas, at the 52nd Biennial Girl Scouts Convention. There are literally thousands of Girl Scouts and Girl Scout leaders here, including several celebrities such as Katie Couric, Robin Roberts, Sara Bareilles, Marlee Matlin, and Maj. General Patricia McQuistion. It’s all happening here: the History Conference, Girl Scouts University, [...]

Quotes From the Cutting Room Floor

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:00:39 +0000

This week I finished the absolutely last, final, only remaining, the conclusive task left for me to do for Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Life of the Founder of the Girl Scouts—the index. Indexes matter a lot to many readers, and so I labored long and hard over it, as I happen to be one [...]

Founder’s Day: If Not For a Friend…

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:00:24 +0000

As all Girl Scouts know, October 31 is Juliette Gordon Low’s birthday. That’s why it is celebrated as Founder’s Day. But how and when and why did this happen? It happened because of the loving concern of a friend. In 1920, Juliette “Daisy” Low stepped down from the presidency of the Girl Scouts. It was [...]

News Flash: The Cover!

Stacy A. Cordery — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:04:52 +0000

At long last! Here is the book cover–Daisy Low happily surrounded by her Girl Scouts. I hope you all like it! It is one step closer to publication–and that’s very exciting!

Willy Low’s Winning Racehorse

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Juliette (“Daisy”) Low’s husband, William Mackay Low, was, as the Times of London put it in 1906, “a gentleman well known in sporting circles.” For Daisy, this was not a good thing. “Sporting” usually implied gambling, and Willy was no stranger to the gaming table or the racetrack. When the Lows purchased Wellesbourne House, in Warwickshire, [...]

The Kinzie Church

Stacy A. Cordery — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

When we–appropriately–think of Juliette (“Daisy”) Gordon Low as a Southerner, we often forget that her mother’s family were founders of Chicago, Illinois. Last week’s blog about the church Daisy attended while she lived in England made me recall the extraordinary beauty of the church begun by her grandparents: St. James Cathedral. Today St. James is [...]