Her mother was witty and outspoken, and young "Daisy," as Juliette was called, also tended to be charming but erratic. Her family was composed of wealthy social leaders in Savannah. In 1886 she married William Mackay Low, an intimate of the Prince of Wales and heir to a huge fortune. In high society in late Victorian England, Daisy was a great success. Her increasing deafness might have made a recluse of a less vibrant personality.

She was in her fifties before she began her work for which she is remembered. She met General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, and became an enthusiast of their female counterpart, the Girl Guides. When the Girl Scouts of the USA was formally organized in 1915, Daisy became the first president and she gave freely of her own money in the early years.

She found it useful to exaggerate her deafness when she pretended not to hear friends who tried to beg off commitments to work for the Scouts. Her lifelong eccentricity and love of "stunts" were enlisted in the cause. She would trim her hat with carrots and parsley and go to a fashionable luncheon. "Oh, is my trimming sad?" she would ask as the vegetables drooped. "I can't afford to have this hat done over -- I have to save all my money for my Girl Scouts. You know about the Scouts, don't you?" Soon all America did, thanks to the woman they lovingly called the founder of Girl Scouting.

Additional Resources:Choate, Anne Hyde. Juliette Low and the Girl Scouts: the story of an American Woman, 1860-1927. Published for Girls Scouts Inc. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1928.

Pace, Mildred Mastin and Danny L. Miller, editors. Juliette Low. Jesse Stuart. Foundation, 1997.

Schultz, Gladys Denny and Daisy Gordon Lawrence. Lady from Savannah: The Life of Juliette Low. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1958.

Gordon Family Papers 1814-1936, Addition 1844-1849, 1853-1916, 635 b. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Library, Manuscripts Department & Southern Historical Collection. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Low's Papers in this collection: 1814-1936.