From the Archives, February 9, 2025

Charles M. Cooper

Charles M. Cooper was the first African American professional Scouter for the Nashville Council.  Hired on to the Council staff in June 1943 as a Field Executive, Cooper headed the Colored Division, what would be called the J. C. Napier division beginning in 1944.

Born in Chattanooga, Cooper graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1926.  By the 1930s Cooper was in middle Tennessee.  He served as the Sunday School Superintendent for Spruce Street Baptist Church and was a founding member of the Tuskegee Club, an alumni club for his alma mater.  And by at least 1938, he was involved as Scoutmaster of Troop 79, sponsored by Spruce Street Baptist.

Along with Commissioner George Anderson and Division Chairman E. J. Turner, Cooper took the Nashville Council’s Colored Division to a new level.  The division had existed for over a decade by 1943, but it was under Cooper that the Division secured a dedicated office in the Morris Memorial Building and held the longest summer camp program in the history of the division at four weeks.  He expanded “colored Scouting” into Tullahoma, Pulaski, and Columbia.  Land was purchased for what would become Camp Burton.  The division also held an annual field day and bi-annual courts of honor.  Under Cooper, the Division saw its first ever Eagle Scout in December 1944.

Cooper resigned from Scouting in May 1949.  The most likely explanation is that Cooper resigned in protest over the reorganization of the Nashville Council into the Middle Tennessee Council in January 1949.  The reorganization led to the creation of districts and the hiring of district executives to cover the 38 county service area.  Despite his success and reach over the exact same service area, the Napier Division did not receive a similar expansion to growing Scouting.

Cooper remained involved as a volunteer, serving as a district commissioner and committee chair in the 1950s.  He passed away in March 1987, one of the great unsung heroes of middle Tennessee Scouting.  We can find no photo, but he is at least mentioned here in the baton hand-off from Anderson to Akers in September 1947 (_Nashville Banner_).

New Scout Executive Takes Over

“New Scout Executive Takes Over Duties,” _Nashville Banner_, September 16, 1947, pg 8.

From the Archives, March 17, 2024

The First Women

To our knowledge, there have been several “firsts” concerning women and Boxwell’s program. The first woman on staff at Boxwell Reservation was cook Norma Cardiff (1960 and 1961). The longest serving female staff member was cook Pearl Schleicher (1962-1994). The first woman on Parnell staff was Judi Eubank, serving as Kitchen Director in 1974. The first female program director was Elizabeth Nicholson at Camp Murrey (1960). The first female area director was Diane Gregory, Field Sports (1997).

But the very first female on Boxwell Staff appears to date all the way back to Rock Island. Nashville Banner “Scout correspondent” Louis Hine reported in June 1951 that two women had joined the Rock Island staff. Mrs. Jean Murdock and Mrs. Tom Pedigo joined cook Ike Davis and dish-washer Jim (possibly Davis). The two women were considered “Senior Staff” and planned the camp’s meals. Murdock in particular was a dietitian.

And that’s all we know. We don’t know their full names. We don’t know how many summers they served. We don’t know what they looked like as we have no photos of them. All we know for sure is they appeared in this article in the Nashville Banner and appear to be the very first women on Boxwell staff.

Louis Hines, “100 Boy Scouts Enjoy Activities at Scenic Boxwell Reservation,” Nashville Banner, June 28, 1951, pg. 15

Website Update

Photo information

From the very beginning of the VirtualBoxwell blog, we have made an effort to note critical information about the photos we use. This included a “title” of the photo, who the photo belonged to, dimensions, and year. It is essential to the work that we do that this information be noted.

However, WordPress has updated to the point where this information is no longer publicly available. Previously, you could click on a photo and get the critical information we were providing. This is no longer possible.

So, going forward, we will provide this information as part of posting. If there is any photo in the Boxwell News blog that you would like to know the background on, please let us know. We will happily provide this information as we never intended it to not be public.

From the Archives, October 15, 2023

Washing Dishes…1929 style

Camp Boxwell at Linton was different from modern Boxwell in just about every way possible. And that even includes how dishes were washed.

Camp Cook Walter Whittaker prepared all the food and Scouts ate in a “dining hall.” While there was no “kitchen staff,” the way there is today, the pots and pans used to prepare the meal still had to be cleaned. How was this done? In the river.

After the meal, pots and pans were taken down to the Little Harpeth river and cleaned, as shown here. Utensils were scalded in boiling water. The kitchen stands in the background as Whittaker directs Scouts–not staff, Scouts–to clean the kitchen dishes.

The caption reads: “Above–Walter, camp cook for many seasons, directs a little dish-washing. The Little Harpeth forms the first water water supply. Later the kitchen utensils are scalded.”

Photos by C. J. Burnell. From “Boy Scouts Learn to be ‘On Their Own’ at Camp Boxwell,” Nashville Tennessean, July 7, 1929, Rotogravure Section.

Washing Dishes at Linton, 1929
Washing Dishes at the Linton Boxwell, 1929. “Above–Walter [Whittaker], camp cook for many seasons, directs a little dish-washing. The Little Harpeth forms the first water water supply. Later the kitchen utensils are scalded.”

Council Social Media

Greetings everyone! If you’re interested in keeping up with the Council’s different social media platforms, follow this link:

https://linktr.ee/mtcbsa

And of course, there’s the various VirtualBoxwell social media platforms as well:

http://www.virtualboxwell.org
https://www.facebook.com/Virtual-Boxwell-535889736429512/
https://www.instagram.com/virtual.boxwell/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualboxwell/collections/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4CdANWuz_6dRQLHNqeKT9A