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Boy's life: Woodstock resident looks back on storied past of Scouting
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By Josette Keelor -- jkeelor@nvdaily.com
WOODSTOCK -- In the Shenandoah Valley, the name George Beatty is almost synonymous with Boy Scouts. Considering he can stand on the deck of his Shenandoah County house and look out on Scouts from all over Virginia toasting marshmallows on any given weekend during the warmer months, his knowledge of the organization is pretty much a given.
Beatty, 85, has not only portioned out his land on Rocky Top Lane near Woodstock for the use of the Boy Scouts of America, but his experience with the organization, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, parallels the majority of its history.
The Scouts honored Beatty in March for his lifetime achievement of volunteering with boys young and old.
"They have a recognition dinner once a year," he says. "I have 76 and a half years now."
He also received recognition for 50, 60, 65, 70 and 75 years of service.
One would think that after 761⁄2 years in Scouting, the days and weeks would all blend together and the details would fade, but Beatty has filed away information about the Scouts in his brain -- and memorabilia in cabinets and drawers around his home.
"I've been in Scouting so long; I joined Scouting in 1934. That's a long time," he says.
He joined the national organization as a Scout himself, earning his Eagle Scout rank and continuing in the tradition to later help others.
"I think it was the dynamic personality of my Scoutmaster. ... He was our Sunday school teacher and we decided to form a Scout troop," he says.
There were 25 in that troop in September 1937.
"In Scouting, it's a way of life. If a boy doesn't stand for something, he's liable to fall for anything. Scouting gives him something to stand for," he says. "If that becomes part of his thinking as a young man, it will be a part of his thinking the rest of his life."
Though Scouting has changed significantly over the past 76 years, there are some things that remain the same.
"The boy is the whole reason for Scouting and it is the dedicated volunteer unit leader who is in direct contact with the boy that makes Scouting work," he says, reading from a speech he gave at a Boy Scout event in 1988, and again in February at the Moose Lodge in Edinburg.
"I had an opportunity to do many things in Scouting. I was a guide at the first jamboree that Scouting had in 1937 [in D.C.]," he says. "I enjoy that. I enjoy Scouting."
Beatty's devotion to the Scouts surpasses a love promoted by his own Scouting years; he continues to inspire those who come after him to do great things with their lives.
He became a commissioner in December 1948, now a commissioner for over 18,000 boys.
"I stayed in Scouting [as] an effort to pay a debt of gratitude for all that Scouting did for me," he says. If the life he led after earning his Eagle Scout award is any indication of what Scouting providing for him, then the gratitude he feels is more than understandable.
A former page for the House of Representatives, a World War II veteran, a former fire instructor for 35 years and a retiree from 50 years at Acacia Mutual Life Insurance Co.,
Beatty has led a full life, even excluding his family life, volunteer service with the Scouts and his many hobbies, including whittling and collecting everything from Civil War era pistols to lighthouses.
"I have a lot of hobbies. That's one thing about Scouting ... you have opportunities to explore many fields of interest," he says.
"I belong to Northern Virginia Woodcarvers," he says. "We belong to the U.S. Lighthouse Society of Chesapeake Bay," he adds of himself and his late wife, Lola.
He also helped build the house in which he now lives, having purchased the shell from Cumberland Builders, now Northern Virginia Builders, and then designing and constructing the inside himself.
"This is a summer house," he says, which he and his wife used only part-time until 1990 when they moved from Arlington to Woodstock permanently.
Part of the property has been used by the Boy Scouts since 1981. Beatty's Farm Boy Scout Camp serves as a place for boys to camp out and take part in advancement activities.
"A certain amount of Boy Scout advancement is outdoors, and they use this as a training facility for the boys," he says.
To say that Scouting plays a huge role in his life would be an underestimation for a man who lives on a Boy Scout camp and has re-created a Scouting museum above his garage.
The museum, which he modeled after the Scouting headquarters in Winchester, nests on the second floor of his garage.
"I was chairman of the museum committee at Scout headquarters," he says. "That's memorabilia; I've collected that all my life."
The museum houses his collections of Swiss Army knives, Scouting axes, first aid kits, neckerchiefs, canteens, uniforms and much more.
"Every one of these axes is different," he says, indicating a 1917 Keen Kutter, his oldest example, and another without a name that bears a Scout insignia on the right side.
"I like the little one because it's lightweight," he says of a smaller ax. Carrying an ax is important to a Scout, he says. "You've gotta be self-sufficient and be able to manipulate."
His favorite, though, is one of only 500 made.
"This one is unique because it has the eagle facing the left and the eagle is supposed to be facing the right," he says. "It's very rare."
The axes in his collection range from 1917 to 1986.
"This is pretty much the complete collection of plumb axes," he says.
Hanging on a wall next to the axes is his Scouting sash, upon which his mother sewed his merit badges. Unfortunately, she sewed them on with too much space in between each patch, resulting in many more Beatty has that could not fit.
Also in the museum is an evolution of the merit badges and how they've changed over the years.
"Nothing's more consistent than the inconsistency of Scouting," he says.
He also displays artifacts behind framed glass on the walls of the museum. Because of the abundance of historical significance, he says he has tried to display the pieces in a certain perspective.
"That's why I try to use the evolution method of all my Scout memorabilia," he says, indicating a display of neckerchief slides ordered in the steps it took to make each one.
"You learn by doing," he says, and he believes that the evolutionary scale will indicate to visiting Scouts the process each item took to become useful to the Boy Scout who used it.
"We take memorabilia, things that we have, and put on shows at different activities for the general public to be interested in it," he says of himself and museum volunteers at headquarters.
"This is the first canteen Scouting used; it has mothballs in it," he says of a small metal canteen that the Boy Scouts purchased from the military and resold through its catalogs.
"Scouting has always benefited from wars," he says, pointing to a Scouting catalog that lists canteens in 1947 being sold for $1.50, though he says they cost the military 25 cents to make.
Everything in the museum is labeled with the years it was in use. Beatty says his wife, who also was a Scoutmaster, came upon many of the items, and he looked them up in Scouting catalogs to learn how old they were.
First aid kits line a drawer at the back of the room next to a window that looks out over Beatty's land, 500 acres in 1977, but now down to about 28 acres.
"This is one I used when I was a Scoutmaster," he says, holding up a kit dated from 1937-1948. The kit includes iodine, which he says is no longer used.
Mostly the museum incorporates "odds and ends I've collected over the last 75 years," he says. "Everything that's happened in the last 100 years, Scouting has been involved in it."
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