A Year of Blogging: February 8, 2011

February 8 was Boy Scout Day. This year the Boy Scouts are 100 years old. As a female, obviously I was not a Boy Scout. My father was a scout at some point; and a couple of years ago I discovered that Mom's father was a Boy Scout also. Two years ago, after my Grandmother passed away, my Aunt shipped me boxes full of photos, family history stuff, and momentos. In one of these boxes was a small candy box. The box itself was deteriorated to the point that it could not be saved. Inside the box were items that belonged to my Grandfather as a boy. I could tell that each item had been placed there with great care. There were hand embroidered handkerchiefs that were folded neatly into a small rectangle. Letters from his favorite Aunt were still in the envelopes, the ends of the envelopes carefully opened with a straight edge instrument (maybe a pocket knife). There was a Boy Scout handbook, and a progress card from his Scoutmaster. I could picture my grandfather putting his most prized possessions there, and then securing the box in a special place- under his bed, or maybe under the floorboard. I had never seen the box before, so I'm not sure where he hid it as an adult. Maybe in his tool shed. I didn't know my grandfather had been a boy scout until I found this box. Mom said she remembered him talking about being a Boy Scout, but I didn't. Also included in the box were letters from his mother. She wrote the letters to him while he was away at Camp Rotary, the boy scout camp in our area. The camp is still used by Boy Scouts. It is about 15 minutes (by car) from my mother's house (which is next door to the house my Grandpa grew up in). But you have to go over the mountain to get there. When my grandfather attended as a boy, you would have had to go by horse and wagon. It must have seemed like another world! Now, it wouldn't even seem like you had left home, but when Grandpa was there, he stayed for a several weeks at a time. His mother wrote him several letters. He was her oldest child, and it is obvious from the letters that she missed him. It had to have been hard for her too- sending her son so many miles away for weeks. She wrote about what had been happening at home: in town, as well as what his brother and sisters were doing. She also wrote that she hoped to get to visit him the following weekend. Every time I go home to NY, we drive past the camp. In order to get to my sister's house from mom's, we go right past it. I can't help but imagine the same journey 90 years ago. The letters from my great-grandmother were an extra treasure- later in life she was crippled by Rheumatoid Arthritis, and wasn't able to write much, if at all. After sorting through the momentos, I turned to the photo albums. I was thrilled to find photos of my grandfather in his boy scout uniform. He's standing next to a good sized trunk, which was probably everything he needed for a couple weeks at camp. There were also photos that looked to be of Camp Rotary, so I emailed the photos to a Ranger at Camp Rotary. He was able to tell me what the buildings were, and was thrilled to see such old pictures. The best we could figure is that the pictures were from the mid 1920s. I think the camp started around 1922, so these were very early pictures of the camp. While I didn't know Grandpa had been a Boy Scout, I know it meant a lot to him. He kept these reminders all his life, and then they were passed to me. I will treasure them, just as he did.