Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Memories of Mable Smith

Kerrin Winter-Churchill contributed this memory of Mable Smith, for whom a shelter at Camp Crowell/Hilaka is named:

My mother went to work for the Cleveland Girl Scout Council in 1949. Like all Girl Scout staffers of the day, she went to Camp Macey, in upstate New York for a month of intensive training. When she came back to Cleveland, she shared an office with Mable Smith. Mrs. Smith was not a volunteer.  She was a paid, professional employee of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council, which officiated over Chagrin, Bedford, Richfield, Elyria, and those districts in the Westpark area. My mother was a Field Director.
Mable was the Director of Camps. It was she that scheduled troops at the various campgrounds.  She met regularly with the staff that trained the leaders. It was a different world back then.  Imagine: every single person who worked at the Girl Scouts had to go through training at a special camp up in New York. Another of Mable's responsibilities was to take the staff out on nature hikes. They would go out with "A stick and a bundle" (which was also the name of the instructional booklet that Mable and my mother wrote and published) to teach about wildflowers and medicinal plants. Other hikes would be all about identifying animal footprints and wild birds. Mom said that so many people would want to go on these walks that they would have to schedule additional days.

I have learned so much about nature from my mother, always identifying plants and birds. My mom told me tonight that Mable taught her so much about this.  So it has been handed down to me, and to my sister's children, and beyond. I am sure there are hundreds of other families handing down Mable Smith's legacy in the very same way.

Second from Left, my Grandmother, Berta Phanholzer-Schmoter playing 
in Rocky River with her fellow "Campfire Girls" in 1919... by this 
time, the Campfire Girls and other such organizations were taken 
under the wing of what was called "The Cleveland Girls' Council."

1951, My mother's fellow Cleveland Girl Scout Council staffers - from 
left to right,   Gene "Billy" Hill, visiting GS from South Africa, 
Sammie Green, Director of Public Relations for the Cleveland Girl 
Scout Council and Virginia Payne-Wentworth, Director of Leadership 
Training (left GS in 1958 to pursue a career as noted children's 
author.) Note from Lynn:  I believe that this picture is taken on the road north of Kirby House. That would be the roof of Cricket's Corner  on the right,  the Kirby garage on the background.

In 1950, Mable and my mother rented a rustic limo, filled it with 
supplies, hooked a trailer with more supplies and set off with a 
couple extra girls for a long weekend of primitive camping in the 
Mohican Wilderness. They had all been studying a manual on primitive 
camping and this weekend was to prove to themselves they could 
survive by roughing it, if they really had to. They set snares for 
food, dug their own latrines, learned to sterilize water by fire - 
speaking of fire, they learned how to make it without a match. Mom 
said they "had a wonderful time."

From Left to right  "unknown",  Field Director, "Little Lois 
Smith" , Executive Director of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council,  
Helen Tolman Murray and Lois Schmotzer (later Smith) Field Director 
of Chagrin, Elyria and West Park Districts.

Mable Smith at far left of camera - (older glasses and plaid jacket) 
and the rest of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council - taken by my mother 
Lois Smith) at Mable's home in North Royalton a year before Mrs. 
Smith died of cancer.

My core Girl Scout troop, Troop 180 - led by our wonderful leader, 
the late, Mrs. Lucille Manica and Mrs. Lois Schmotzer Smith - we were 
state Canoe racing champions of Ohio Girlscouts  in 1974 .
Kneeling, first row - left to right, Kerrin Smith (now Winter 
Churchill) Linda Dyson and Denise Besida.  Standing, left to right, 
Lynn Geragach, Lucille Manica, Cindy Platt, Jan Carter (brunnette) 
Doctor Susan Schuckert, (Susie), Kristin Smith (Sullivan) and Mary 
O'Neill.