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Chapter 14. A Light on the Path of Wisdom
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220 a Light on the Path of Wisdom A brief article in a 1937 issue of the Sherman Daily Democrat listed the accomplishments of a prominent local citizen: “The mother of three sons has been a leader of girls continuously for 16 years, and hercontributions to local, district, state and national projects of the Camp Fire Girls organization has won for her national recognition as a welfare worker. In addition, she has been a commercial secretary , a wife and homemaker, a successful club woman, religious leader, a federal court reporter, a commercial instructor and is the author of a historical volume. She is Mrs. H. E. Hall.”1 Speaking of his mother more than seven decades later, one of her sons remembered , “She just never slowed down. She was always up to something . She was out to save the world.”2 Born in Fair Dealing, Kentucky, in 1885, Mita Holsapple was five years old when her father, J. W. Holsapple, a minister in the Disciples of Christ denomination, moved his family to Texas. After a few years as a circuit-riding preacher, Holsapple settled his family in Sherman, Grayson County, where he served as pastor of Central Christian Church. Mita Holsapple grew up in Sherman, graduated from the local Mary Nash College, and went to work as a secretary for a nursery company. She married William M. Gordon in 1906, and they were the parents of a son they called Bill. By 1917, though, the Gordons’ marriage had ended, and Mita established a separate household with her son and a young orphaned cousin from Kentucky . Feeling a patriotic call to duty upon the United States’ entry into World War I that year, the young mother entrusted the children to the care of close relatives and, accompanied by a girlhood friend, went towork as a secretaryat the Department of the Navy inWash14 a LiGHt on tHe patH oF Wisdom 221 ington, DC, for the duration of thewar. She returned to her family in Sherman in 1918, and the following year she married Hugh Edward Hall, secretary-treasurer at the Texas Nursery Company. The Halls had two sons: Clyde L., born in 1922, and Hugh E. Jr., born in 1925.3 As was the case with many young women of her Progressive Era generation who found an outlet for community activism through the woman’s club movement, Mita Holsapple Hall volunteered her time and talents to a number of causes. As a leader of youth programs at Central Christian Church, she became aware of the national Camp Fire Girls organization and soon thereafter sought to establish a Camp Fire presence in Sherman. Camp Fire Girls emerged in the early twentieth century as an organization that encouraged health, education, and community service. According to historian Jennifer Helgren, “In 1911, a group of educators, reformers, and youth workers headed by Luther Gulick and his wife Charlotte Gulick began organizing the Camp Fire Girls to provide American girls with a feminine corollary to the Boy Scouts.” The movement spread quickly from its New England roots, and within two years had a presence in all forty-eight states as well as the territories of Alaska and Hawaii. As Helgren Mita Holsapple Hall with son Clyde, 1922. Courtesy Clyde L. Hall. [3.145.201.71] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 06:59 GMT) 222 CHapter 14 explained, “Camp Fire was one of many youth organizations and youth centered enterprises to emerge during the Progressive Era. Educators and reformers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned to social programs and government legislation to guard youth and prepare them for the rapid social changes that accompanied the modern industrial era.”4 Camp Fire’s primary mission, as stated by Luther Gulick, was “to promote service to others, team work, and opportunities for a well rounded life—a vivid, intense life of joy and service.” The organization officially incorporated in Washington, DC, in 1912, and Gulick chose the name and logo “because campfires were the origin of the first communities and domestic life. Once people learned to make and control fire, they could develop and nurture a sense of community.” Gulick’s vision also included the promotion of what he termed a “balanced life” for adolescent girls. “Balanced living meant recognizing the need for work, play, and rest; fordeveloping body, mind, and spirit; and for incorporating tradition into modern life. An essential statement of this lifeview was the action oriented Camp Fire Law: ‘Seek beauty, Give service, Pursue...