After 80 years, original members of an Iowa Camp Fire Girls troop meet for the last time
Four lifelong friends met in West Des Moines on Sunday for the last time.
Nancy Boldt, Caryl Calsyn and Evelyn Mintzer gathered around a table with a yellow-orange lace tablecloth and gold rim plates and silverware. Jane Koning joined them from Wisconsin through Zoom.
Mintzer's daughter, Dana Leman, poured blueberry lemonade into wine glasses with painted pink, yellow and purple flowers as the 88-year-old women shared memories, laughing as they looked over photos from their eight decades of friendship.
These friends have known each other for more than 80 years and have reunited frequently throughout their lives. Originally nine members in Davenport, the group first met in the 1940s in their Camp Fire Girls troop — an outdoor group similar to Boy Scouts.
Sunday was the last meeting among the last remaining members, as age and illness makes it harder for them to travel.
Troop leader and playground teacher Edna Specht didn't have daughters, so she took in the troop as her own. With her, the girls had sleepovers, went to Chicago and to summer camp.
Boldt and Mintzer remember walking on the train track to visit her at the park.
"I remember staying overnight with Ms. Specht and going through the closet in the bedroom. We went up in her attic and found some really neat things. She just let us run around," Koning said.
Sometime in the late 1940s, Specht took the girls from Davenport to Chicago for a festival to celebrate 100 years of the railroad. They remembered staying in some random house in the city.
"I think it takes a lot of nerve to take (all) of us," Calsyn said of their troop leader's efforts.
One Christmas, Specht's husband made each girl a waste paper basket. Koning and Boldt still use theirs.
Specht had such an impact on them, that decades later, the women worked together to make a quilt that illustrated treasured memories. When she died, Specht was buried in it, Boldt said.
The girls in the group eventually grew up, becoming an interior designer, nun, poet, president of a synagogue, master bridge player who beat Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, master gardener, financial manager, teachers, retail workers and homemakers, according to a news release. They moved to Indiana, Texas, Wisconsin and California. Some remained in Iowa.
Every few years, the troop members would reunite to relish in their memories or support one another as they lost spouses or became ill.
They continued to meet as their numbers dwindled, their last before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. Husbands were included and given honorary Camp Fire Girl certificates and sentimental gifts were exchanged to commemorate their friendships.
One year, Calsyn, a published poet, gave out quilted poems to each of the Camp Fire Girls, with a word sewn in to describe each person. She also made a teddy bear with a Camp Fire insignia on it for her friends as some got sick.
Mintzer had her teddy with her Sunday. She had a stroke and now needs a nurse but the youthful energy was still visible among the four friends left.
As they shared memories, Leman picked up the quilted poem given to Mintzer and read out loud to the group: It all began when we were little girls, Bluebird and Camp Fire Girls, the poem begins as it goes through their lives, love and loss.
Can divinely guided friendship be more blessed than this?
Noelle Alviz-Gransee is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. Follow her on Twitter @NoelleHannika or email her at NAlvizGransee@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Camp Fire Girls troop met for the last time after 80 years of reunions
