Each year hundreds of Girl Scouts make their pilgrimage to Savannah Georgia, where the Girl Scouts of the USA was founded in 1912. At the top of their list is a visit to the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, lovingly called "The Birthplace", where founder Juliette Gordon was born on Halloween night 1860 to William and Nelly Gordon.
William Washington Gordon II (Willie) was a native Savannahian and son of William Washington Gordon I, founder of the Central of Georgia Railroad and former Mayor of Savannah. Willie left Savannah in 1842, at the age of eight, with his mother Sarah and siblings after his father contracted malaria and died suddenly. Sarah Gordon moved the family to New Jersey so that her children could attend the favored northern schools. It was at Yale University that Willie Gordon met his bride to be, the high-spirited and adventurous Eleanor "Nelly" Kinzie. Willie and Nellie would return to the Gordon home in Savannah where they would raise a loving family of six children. Their second child Juliette (Daisy) would go on to found the Girl Scouts of the USA.
There was a bond between Willie and Nelly Gordon that saw past differences that would normally hinder other relationships. Nelly, a native of Chicago, was staunchly against slavery. Willie, a Georgian by birth, would remain loyal to his state. He would go on to fight with the Georgia Hussars during what Nelly referred to as the "Confederate War". Nelly would lose a brother in the Union Army, while two others would be taken as prisoners of war. Even her beloved Willie would go missing while fighting for the confederate cause. True to her determined and high-spirited nature, Nelly Gordon would solicit the help of two opposing generals, Robert E. Lee and William T. Sherman, in finding her lost love. Both generals would treat Mrs. Gordon with the utmost respect. She was a commanding presence all her own. Willie was eventually found in Virginia and would soon return to his native Savannah and the loving arms of his faithful and determined wife.
Their lives together did not go unchallenged, as they both sought the greater good of others. Willie would do so through military service, Nelly through aiding the sick and poor. Though they were frequently separated by these causes, they were never far from one another's hearts. When Willie Gordon passed away in 1912 he left a grief-strickened wife behind. She would go on serving others and offering her home as a place of utmost hospitality for another five years. However, on February 22, 1917, after a long illness, Nelly Gordon died in the front bedroom of her Savannah home. Each of her five living children were present at her side. The family would later recall how their father William Gordon appeared at the moment of his wife's death.
Nelly's daughter-in-law Mary Stewart Gordon Platt had said her farewells to Mrs. Gordon and was sitting quietly in an adjoining room. She was quite surprised to see the familiar figure of her late father-in-law William Gordon, dead five years, standing in the hallway looking into the room where his wife lay. She would later describe the expression on his face as being one of "grave gladness". He proceeded through the room where Mary Gordon was sitting and down the front stairs. Just moments later Mary's husband came into the room to inform her that his mother had passed. Mary tried to explain what she had seen to her husband, who in his grief dismissed what she was saying until they reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the old family butler in tears. Before anyone had told him the news, the old servant had already known that the lady of the house was dead. For he had just seen William Gordon himself come down the stairs in his favorite grey suit and walk right out the front door. The servant expressed his joy at seeing the familiar figure "Lawd, 'twas good to see him again....I thought you lake to know de General come fetch her hisself, suh." The family would recall that at the moment of her passing, their mother had a peaceful and radiant look on her face...like she was going to meet her bridegroom.
Today the "Birthplace" is a memento to both the founding and service of one of the world's most charitable organizations; as well as to the legacy of a family rooted in a timeless and enduring love for one another.
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