Scouting memories: For this couple, remembering the Girl Scouts goes way past the campfire

COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy

Carol and Ernie Altvater stand surrounded by mannequins wearing Girl Scout uniforms from different eras in their Claremont home. The couple of 39 years has amassed an astonishing collection of Girl Scout memorabilia, and regularly gives tours to Girl Scout troops.

Scouting memories
For this couple, remembering the Girl Scouts goes way past the campfire

It started off so innocently.

“Hey, that’s cool. Let’s buy that,” Carol Altvater remembers saying to her husband, Ernie, about 20 years ago, eyeing an antique Girl Scout grooming kit.

And then they saw something similar that attracted their attention.

“Hey, this stuff is pretty cool. Let’s buy a shelf,” thought the couple.

And then one shelf became many shelves, which grew into display cases and wall mountings and museum-style exhibition drawers and, ultimately, the devotion of 3 rooms—about 1,000 square feet of their Upland home—to their Girl Scout memorabilia collection.

Standing amidst the thousands of items, which include paper napkins, fly swatters, badges, toothbrushes, old ($.40!) cookie boxes, uniforms across the ages, historical photos, diaries, jewelry, canteens, dolls and oh-so-much more, deciding what to ask them first was a challenge.

“How about ‘what’s the matter with you?’” offered Mr. Altvater, lightheartedly acknowledging that a collection of this nature, of this scale, was, well, rather unusual.

“We think collectors have something wrong in the brain,” he joked, having just admitted that he and his wife have been collectors “ever since we were old enough to put 2 things together.”

But for the Altvaters, there are many things quite right with their Girl Scout collection. The fun and intrigue and satisfaction, for example, that working on it brings to their 39-year marriage. A bland life is led, indeed, if one does not have something to be passionate about.

And, as is evidenced in every immaculate and brimming nook and cranny of their display area, the Altvaters have passion. Everyday, they involve themselves in their collection in some manner, each engaged just as much as the other.

“People think it’s my collection and that he just tolerates it,” said Ms. Altvater, “but it’s totally 50/50.”

Hours are spent reconditioning recent acquisitions, dusting (and more dusting), fashioning new display methods, leading tours and, of course, hunting for new items to add. Vacations always center on the growth of their collection.

“No matter how much we have, there’s always something we don’t have that we need,” Ms. Altvater said.

Swap meets around the country, antique stores near and far, garage sales, the eBay marketplace and other haunts are fair game for finding something sought or something unexpected. How thrilled they were to stumble upon a 1918 “Thanks” badge (“with 50 or 60 years of dirt on it”) in what they called a “poke box”—a box of random things, each cheaply priced, ripe for the picking.

“We didn’t think it was real…Ernie! Get out here! It’s real!” reminisced Ms. Altvater about finding the treasure.

Annually, the couple adds between several dozen or several hundred objects to their collection, celebrating the rare find with eyes already on the next potential conquest.

“Once you find it, you move on to the next think you don’t have, and that’s the rare,” said Mr. Altvater, a retired business owner.

Keeping abreast of what they don’t have—but want—is relatively easy, considering they possess 90 percent of all of the Girl Scout merchandise catalogues published since 1918.

Recently, they acquired 2 sought-after 1950s dolls at Girl Scout Swap Meet in North Carolina, mingling with other Girl Scout memorabilia collectors of whom there are approximately 50 serious and 300 casual, Mr. Altvater estimated.

“We’re not at the top, but we’re pretty serious,” he said.

COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy

Ten-year-old Alyssa Smith of Girl Scout Troop 10724 of Montclair tries on different hats worn by Girl Scouts through the ages at the home of Ernie and Carol Altvater in Upland.

And, once again anticipating, at least to some degree, the burning but yet unspoken question, Mr. Altvater brought it into the open with a smile: “Are they as weird as we are?” A quick summary by his wife suggested that every collector is unique in their own special way. And, perhaps surprisingly, plenty of men scour the world for Girl Scout stuff.

“It’s not just Ernie and a whole bunch of women,” Ms. Altvater noted.

For Ms. Altvater, the collection represents the actualization of a childhood wish: her mother would not allow her to join the Girl Scouts.

“She let me be a Camp Fire Girl, but I didn’t want to be a Camp Fire Girl!” she said.

When her own daughters, now 30 and 33, were of age, she immediate enrolled them in Girl Scouts and soon became a leader herself.

“And it was amazing,” she said. “I got to do everything I wanted to do as a child…I got even with her.”

“Yes, she made up for it,” added Mr. Altvater.

And strong has her desire become to not only preserve the history of the Girl Scouts but to pass it on to current generations of scouts, infusing their experience with richer meaning and connection to the past.

“They start to get the concept that things were different, but I also bring it back to how things are the same,” she said.

From Mr. Altvater’s perspective: “Every collector wants to show what they’ve got. Look at this!” he said.

Together, the Altvaters lead between 500-800 scouts on tours of the collection per year. Once, a group of senior women who had been Girl Scouts together in the 40s enjoyed a hearty dose of nostalgia as they traipsed through.

On Thursday, it was Junior Girl Scout Troop 10724 from Howard Elementary School in Montclair that arrived, sporting their sashes and badges and ready to ogle.

The 5th and 6th graders learned about the history of the Girl Scouts, with an intensive and interesting focus on uniform transformations. In the “Mannequin Room” and the “Brownie Room,” numerous mannequins model uniforms representing different eras. Ms. Altvater explained historical rationale for changes in design, such as replacing zippers with buttons when brass was needed for World War II efforts; and the bland khaki changing to bright, cheery green when the war ended.

More importantly, Ms. Altvater encouraged the girls to think critically about the “why” of uniforms, ultimately helping them understand that since Girl Scouts is for every girl, uniforms brought equality through attire—no one was rich; no one was poor: all were Girl Scouts.

After viewing the 1918 silent film, “the Golden Eaglet,” narrated by the Altvaters, the young scouts were set free to explore. Many bee-lined for the “Try It On” room, where they donned hats, sashes and vests from other eras. This area, said Mr. Altvater, is always a favorite.

“Everything,” was the favorite of 11-year-old Alyssa Smith, who likes scouting because “it helps our country and it feels good to help other people.”

Nine-year-old Jacqueline Hernandez opted for a more contemporary American girl vernacular when expressing her thoughts on the collection.

“It’s cool! It’s awesome!” she exclaimed.

Certainly, thousands of Girl Scouts will trek through the Altvater’s collection in years to come, benefiting from the biggest and best of the couple’s numerous collections—ducks, fish, elves, fiesta dinnerware and ceramic long-necked cats have also reached “collection” status in their home.

“We’re pretty careful about what we buy, because if we get 2 of something, pretty soon it’s going to need it’s own room,” Ms. Altvater said.

— Brenda Bolinger