A Family Affair

After my mother passed away ten years ago, I inherited some of my grandmother’s things, including two Girl Scout handbooks.  One was my aunt’s, and the other was my grandmother’s, who served as her leader.  Here’s the handbook:

Fast forward to this past weekend.  I attended our council’s Volunteer Kickoff, and on the way back, I stopped by my aunt’s house because I hadn’t seen her in quite some time.  I brought Aunt Susan her handbook during my visit.  She in turn pulled out a picture of she and my grandmother at a cookie booth in Atlanta back in the day!  I took a picture of the picture and did some work on it in Photoshop.  Here it is cleaned up:

My grandmother is in the middle, and my aunt is on the right.  I posted this picture on my “work” Facebook profile, and a discussion about their uniforms broke out, of course.  Aunt Susan estimated that this picture was taken in 1958 or 1959, and that would correspond to the 1957 printing date of their handbook.  I also posted this picture in the GS History and Archive Community Facebook group and likewise, conversation about the uniform popped up.  Some thought they were wearing a Cadette uniform which would have put the picture after 1963 (when the level was created), but after I stated that Aunt Susan graduated from high school in 1965 and her last year of GS was 8th grade, she was identified as an Intermediate Girl Scout which pre-dated the Cadette level.

Aggie wrote:  “Per the timeframe the OP gave of about 1958-59, these girls are Intermediates wearing the Alternate Intermediate (Junior High) Uniform.  The Cadette uniform evolved from the Alternate Intermediate and Alternate Senior Uniforms – it had a skirt visually similar to the Junior High uniform, and a blouse that buttoned to the top like the Alternate Senior blouse.”

If you visit the GS Catalogs website and pull up the 1958 catalog, you can find this uniform:

Here’s the sash:

Another neat item I found in my grandmother’s handbook was a price listing of items:

After I had posted all of this information on Facebook, I wondered how old my grandmother was in that picture.  I did the math.  Then it slowly dawned on me that she was younger than I am now by a couple of years.

Well, Grandmother may have looked very spiffy in her adult uniform and gloves back in the late 50s, but there was one thing she missed out on.  And that was OFFICIAL scarves!  They didn’t make their OFFICIAL appearance until 1968 in case you were wondering.

Thank you Aunt Susan for this trip down Girl Scout History Lane!