In the early 1940s, like most children, I enjoyed dressing up in Mom’s dresses and the few hats she owned. At 70, I’m still enamored with hats, whether it’s today’s fashionable ones or the vintage kind.
As a teen, having been raised on a farm with nine siblings, hats weren’t an “in” item in my young life. While attending high school, my peers and I wore scarves for a head covering. Even if cute hats would have been in style, my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford them.
Before I was born, in the 1930s, my older sisters told me Mom insisted they wear sunbonnets when working in the garden. They were made of pretty calico prints and were worn for sun protection. Mom told them, “I don’t want you to look like ‘city girls with a tan.'”
Mom had a favorite hat when I was growing up. She raised peafowl. Every year the male lost its feathers. Mom tucked those gorgeous, colorful plumes in one of her head hugging “chapeau” hats that were popularized by the “I Love Lucy” show. It actually did look quite nice on Mom.
Another hat was made famous by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s. It was the pillbox hat, with a flat crown and straight upright sides with no brim. This is the one I mainly wore as a young mother to church, and always with gloves.
I may not wear hats to church anymore, but I have an infatuation with all kinds of hats.
Soon after I was married, my husband and I had our first trip west. The first thing we purchased symbolizes the American West – cowgirl/cowboy hats. We wore them on two other trips west.
Of course, I got to wear the first vintage hat I accumulated. The second honor went to the mannequin in the guest room. The grand-kids, when younger and sleeping over, loved wearing them. I joined in the fun of wearing them when we walked to the nearby mini-mart for ice cream. At Christmas time, for the family gathering, my basketful of vintage hats was brought downstairs. Both adults and children wore them.
On New Year’s Eve, if we had adult company, instead of paper hats, I brought down my vintage hats for all. My husband also had his own collection of derbies, baseball and golf hats, and even a “beanie” from high school days, for the men.
Before my husband’s mother died, she lived in an assisted living nursing home. They had a Victorian decorated room for “special” family celebrations. We once held her family birthday gathering in this room. In the room was a tree rack filled with both men’s and women’s vintage hats. My husband and I were the first to grab a favorite to wear through the festivity.
I found a 1982 photo from a birthday party at Mom’s house. The sisters were all asked to create a hat for a contest. I, myself, had gift bows surrounding a straw hat. My creative sisters had gorgeous flower decorated hats. One sister, Mary Alice, got the prize for the most creative. Somehow, on a large brim hat, she had a real pineapple on top, surrounded in a slew of fresh grapes. As she paraded around the room she ate the grapes.
Another party the six sisters had for Mom was after her stroke. We all wore hats we found in Mom’s closet. Mom, in her child-like manner, was tickled with her “hat” birthday party.
In 1984, my five sisters and I started the Christman family reunions. One of the traditions we started was an adult and children’s hat contest. The photos bring back a lot of memories. There’s one of Anita with a hat surrounded in bridal wreath. Dorothy had an immense 20 inch paper top hat surrounded in musical symbols. Me, since the 10 children were born and raised on a farm, I created the best farm scene I knew how. I attached a flat piece of cardboard to a sturdy hat. On it, I placed a Christman road sign, surrounded in manure that I obtained from a friendly farmer. In the middle of this manure sat a vase with a fresh rose – to offset the “good-smelling” manure.
In all the photos, I felt the most creative and in line with farm life was my daughter Tina’s hat. She went to a butcher for her supplies. On part of the brim she had a beautiful array of pink flowers. Protruding on both sides of the hat were “real” and immense pig ears! Tina had kept them in a cooler until the hat parade got started. Actually, she didn’t keep the pig ear hat on a length of time. She was swarmed with flies.
Alas, after about 10 years, the reunions with the hat contests ceased, but not hats in my life.
In 2004, I started a Red Hat group, called the Red Hat Dutchies. Some girls are my high school classmates and friends. We wear anything from red baseball hats trimmed in feathers or flowers, to the broad-brimmed floppy hats. I now have a variety of 15 red hats to choose from for our monthly gatherings.
One of my Red Hat outfits was purchased on a vacation with my husband. We were walking around a village with lots of gift shops. We had been heading for the car when I spotted a beautiful floppy red hat in a store window. My husband said, “Go in or you won’t rest. I’ll give you 30 minutes then I’ll pick you up at the corner.” In no time, I was at the corner, dressed in a new purple dress, red boa and a large floppy red hat.
There was a time my sister, Dorothy, and I spent entirely too much for a hat. We had gone to an arts and crafts festival one Saturday. We saw this neat reversible, patch work hat. We bought it. We decided to wear it to the next sisters’ party and make them jealous. We did just that. The sisters were drooling. They really loved our hats. By the end of the day, Jannetta begged to have my hat “just for a weekend.” She promised to return it. I assumed she wanted to wear it to a Senior Citizen meeting. She did return it to me within one week. But guess what? She figured out how to make a replica of the hats Dorothy and I paid big bucks for. At our next gathering, she presented the other sisters with a reversible patchwork hat she made. And she didn’t even charge them. Life just isn’t fair!
For out 25th wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to go to New York City, where we had spent our honeymoon. We had checked the weather beforehand. It was going to rain one of the days. So on the day it was supposed to rain, I put the two ponchos I brought along in my purse. When I opened my so-called poncho, it turned out to be a shower hat for the bathtub. Somehow, in our moving to a new city, the shower hat got mixed in with the ponchos, hat and gloves drawer. That didn’t deter us. We improvised. My husband’s head was at the right place in the poncho, while mine was in one of the arms with my shower hat on. We had a few good laughs from other tourists while walking the streets. We didn’t care.
In our last move I decided to “lessen the load.” I got rid of my collection of vintage hats and gave them to family or friends.
To all who enjoyed my hat stories, I say “Hat’s off to you!”
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to everyday stories.
