Harmon’s Histories: School’s in session and cooties abound!

By Jim Harmon

Do 6-year-old girls still think boys have cooties? Do 6-year-old boys still think girls have cooties? I’d ask, but where’s a 6-year-old when you need one?

Growing up in the 1950s, going to grade school, it was my belief that girls positively absolutely had COOTIES!

What’s a cootie, you ask? Well, technically it’s a louse or (plural) lice.

Dictionary.com will tell you, “the word came from the Malay (Austronesian) word ‘kutu,’ the name of some parasitic, biting insect. As a nickname for body lice or head lice, cooties first appeared in trenches of WW1 slang in 1915.”

But in this case, we’re talking about the language of children, not a definition in a textbook.

Cooties are the imaginary disease a 6-year-old girl will absolutely get if she touches a boy!

It’s the same for a 6-year-old boy – he will absolutely get cooties if she touches a boy!

That’s right – just touch a person who is disliked or socially avoided, and you’ve contracted cooties! It spreads diabolically.

There is only one way to save yourself - vaccination!

You must have a friend hold the tip of a retractable pen against your arm and “click it,” while chanting “circle, circle, dot, dot, now you have your cootie shot.”

And we all knew exactly what a cooties looked like, thanks to Mr. William H. Schaper’s board game, “Cootie,” marketed by Hasbro in 1949.

It had all the bug parts required to build a complete “Cootie” . . . body, head and legs. Just roll the die. Each number on the die (1-6) corresponded with a body part. The first player to build a complete “Cootie,” won.

The game was widely popular with young women. At a “stork shower” in Missoula, the guests “played Cootie during the evening.” “Cootie was played at a shower given at the East Missoula Women’s Club.”

In Thompson Falls, the Eastern Stars held “a 49-er chuck wagon dinner” for their guests, members of the Rebekahs. After the meeting, they conducted a “card and cootie party.”

But did you know there was an entirely different kind of cootie: “THE MILITARY ORDER OF THE COOTIE?”

That’s right. After World War I, some Spanish American War Veterans created a VFW Honorary Degree (for returning veterans) “with fun as one of its objectives.” Hundreds signed up.

Fred C. Madden led the group (as the first “Supreme Seam Squirrel”) and F. L. Gransbury edited their publication called the “Cootie Tickle.” They apparently also had their own “official Cootie uniform.” The female auxiliary was known as the Order of Ladybugs.

Over the years, Cootie groups have helped hospitalized veterans, through visits and entertainment. Their slogan was “Keep 'Em Smiling in Beds of White.”

The Cooties Student Scholarship Fund began as a $500 annual stipend for one boy and one girl. Today it has grown to $2,500 each until graduated, plus lesser amounts for students attending vocational schools.

Right here in western Montana - in Hamilton - the major civic project of the Cooties was to eliminate open irrigation ditch hazards and save kids’ lives.

But you can’t have any bonafide organization and not have conventions! And the Cooties certainly did.

In 1950, they gathered in Kalispell. A banner was strung across Main Street welcoming the Cooties and “Cootiets” to their state convention. Members wore “red and white uniforms” in a parade through the downtown area.

Alas, by the 1970s cooties nearly dropped from sight. It was hard to find any mention of cooties or cootie organizations in local newspapers. Besides, these days, cooties are likely considered a manner of “body shaming.”

To grade-school kids, though, I suspect cooties are still a thing.

Jim Harmon is a longtime Missoula news broadcaster, now retired, who writes a weekly history column for Missoula Current. You can contact Jim at fuzzyfossil187@gmail.com. His best-selling book, “The Sneakin’est Man That Ever Was,” a collection of 46 vignettes of Western Montana history, is available at harmonshistories.com.