A Fondness for Hats

Hats remembered

I like hats.

I remember a little hat I had when I was about 4 years old. It was round and flat, made of white straw, with a ring of white daisies around the crown and a bow with long ribbon tails that hung down the back. My Grandma Barb bought it for me when I was at Gordon (NE) to visit. I wore it on the train when I went home. Several children were traveling without adults, and the conductor assigned us to a set of facing seats. One of the little boys sat on my hat and squished it. He also sat on my marshmallow-top cookie and squished it!

In the days of my early childhood (the 1950's) all the ladies still wore hats to church. I especially remember the hats of Mrs. James Tapley, our pastor's wife, at the Church of the Nazarene in Ainsworth, Nebraska. She was young and pretty, and she had a hat for every outfit. One of her hats had a bumblebee hovering over a flower. I was enchanted with it.

Later, after hats were no longer de rigeur, my mother still kept several black hats which she wore to funerals.

I have a small collection of hats. I bought a couple of them at yard sales because they were pretty and they needed to be owned by someone who appreciated them. I wore one of them at Halloween last year and told people that it was my costume.