Scouting, Volume 59, Number 3, May-June 1971 Page: 36
48 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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A NEW UNIFORM
FOR ANGEL
T
here's not much you can say
about Angel Ferrer.
36
He was just a skinny little kid who
died in his sleep at age 10 because an
earthquake made his house fall down.
It wasn't the earthquake's fault. It
had no way of knowing that Angel
Ferrer had just realized a "life-long"
ambition. Or that the last three days
had been the happiest of his life.
It's not that Angel Ferrer had any
long range goals or stuff. He just
dreamed a lot. Of being a Cub Scout,
and wearing the uniform.
A lot of kids want to be a Scout.
But with Angel, it was an obsession.
A year ago, he'd asked his parents if
he could join, but they were forced to
say no.
The $1.00 registration fee just wasn't
in the family's welfare budget.
But when Angel's best friend,
George Rodriguez, joined a Cub Pack,
Angel made up his mind he would, too.
It would just take him a little
longer.
First, Angel went to work. He col-
lected and sold discarded soda pop
bottles and aluminum beer cans.
Finally (there were some set-backs
—a candy bar here, a full bottle of pop
there), he managed to squirrel away
53 cents, just the right amount to buy
an official Cub Scout uniform at a
Salvation Army store.
It was a grand uniform. A little
baggy, perhaps, and a bit tattered—
but "regulation" all the way: One blue
shirt (darker in spots where the pre-
vious owner's badges had been) and
one pair of blue pants.
The cap and scarf would be added
later. There was still the matter of the
registration fee.
And the uniform did the trick. It
convinced his parents that Angel was
serious about becoming a Cub Scout.
His father, Julio Ferrer, accompan-
ied little Angel to a meeting of the
Webelos den of San Fernando's First
Methodist Church's Pack 44 on Jan. 28.
Patrolman Richard Jesson, a burly
officer of the Los Angeles Police De-
partment, remembers the meeting
well. As head of the Webelos, Jesson
has all the meetings at his house.
"The little kid sat there in his uni-
form and watched everything like a
thirsty man looks at water. After-
wards, his father told me he'd find the
money somewhere, and we made plans
to take Angel on our camping trip—
the following week."
The following Thursday—Feb. 4—
took a year in coming, it seemed.
Angel spent the time studying his new
Webelos handbook and checking over
his "camping gear."
The registration fee was paid and
Angel became a full-fledged Webelos
just hours before the den left for its
stay in the foothills above Sylmar.
"You should've seen that kid on our
trip," says normally gruff-spoken Jes-
son. "He was first in line for every-
thing, and did everything three times
harder than anyone else."
Jesson, who has a 10-year-old
Webelos of his own, particularly re-
members the care Angel took with his
camping "equipment":
"The poor little guy didn't have a
sleeping bag or regulation mess kit
like everyone else. He'd brought all he
had—a regular dinner plate, a plastic
fork, and a plastic cup.
"He guarded them with his life. I
guess his mom had told him not to
break the plate because, when he went
through the chow line, he held it in
both hands."
During the outing, Angel (4 feet tall,
59 pounds) won two badges:
One for athletic prowess, the other
for his knowledge of the outdoors. He
told one of his friends that the badges
meant more to him than anything.
At noon Sunday, Feb. 7, the 15 mem-
bers of the Webelos Den broke camp
and headed home.
No one had any way of knowing
that only a couple miles away, un-
fathomable pressure was building
below ground.
At home Sunday night and Monday,
there was little but the camping trip
to be discussed in the Ferrer house.
The following morning the quake
killed Angel outright and seriously in-
jured his father. Others in the family
escaped with minor injuries.
Julio Ferrer, an out-of-work laborer,
was treated at a local hospital for leg
and internal injuries. Against his doc-
tor's orders, he signed himself out of
the hospital Friday to be able to at-
tend his son's funeral.
Angel Ferrer was to have received
his badges in front of the entire pack
Feb. 26. Instead, they were awarded
early—if that's possible when they
came so late.
The "ceremony" was relatively sim-
ple.
O. K. McFarland, a funeral director
at J. T. Oswald mortuary in San Fer-
nando, stepped up to the casket and
pinned the medals on.
One thing McFarland remembers is
that the Cub Scout uniform looked
It was. Angel's parents had pur-
chased it only four hours before.
Reprinted from The Los Angeles
Times, by Robert Kistler.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 59, Number 3, May-June 1971, periodical, May 1971; New Brunswick, NJ. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353649/m1/44/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.