A Good Deed Letter

As we have mentioned before, most of our “archives” is made up of Boxwell related material, but some of the material is related to the Council and Scouting in general. Depending on who the person the collection came from, there can be some real jewels. There can also be some smaller, simpler, more human pieces.

In 1944, a boy in Springfield, TN found an empty sack of money ($60!) and returned the sack to the bank. Likely a deposit bag, the bank’s name was printed on the side. The bank was then able to return the money and, in a nice twist, the Tennessean ran an article about it.

What the article did not say was that the boy was a Scout. It appears his Scoutmaster was none other than Beany Elam!

But the best part of the story–and our document this week–is that the Scout Executive himself, William J. Anderson, wrote the Scout a personal letter. Anderson praised the boy for doing the right thing and “exactly as I expected you would do.” For Anderson, “a Boy Scout could take no other course.”

Anderson ends with a simple post-script: “I hope to see you at camp Boxwell.” The whole scenario is Scouting at its best.