My
Mom was a hat person. I remember her wearing one on Sundays to mass and every
other time that she dressed up and went out. She was a tiny woman, standing
4’11” in her stocking feet. But when she wore her stylish spike heels, she
stood, 5’2”. Her long brown hair was
worn up on her head. Usually it was in a bun or a partial bun, encircled by a
braid. With the way she wore her hair and a hat added, that probably added
another inch to her stature.
But
what I remember vividly is the ritual that went along with buying her hat and
my hat for Easter. Those hats were made out of natural straw with broad wide rims
turned up like a sailor hat or wide floppy brim. The Easter hats were decorated
with a bright satin ribbon around the band with tiny imitation flowers or a
large flower added. The hats came in white or other spring-like colors of pink,
blue, or yellow. Once the hat was found,
finding matching shoes and a purse was next on the list, along with a new dress
and a spring coat.
I
grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and still can remember our all day
excursion to find our hats in downtown Cleveland.
My mother didn’t drive, so we took a bus to the stores. But in the 50s, I can
remember traveling on one of the last electric trolley that crossed over the Cuyahoga River. I remember the excitement the
anxiety I felt looking down between the tracks and seeing the water and wonder,
as only a child would…what it would be like if we fell into that river. That
thought would send a shiver down my body, but only for a moment, then my mind would
return to the adventure of going downtown with my Mom and the pleasures that
awaited us.
In the later days,
we would catch a bus by the corner of our house, and it would drop us off at Public Square,
right across from the Highbee’s Department store. That was always where we
started and ended our mission to find our Easter hats. Sometimes we would go to
the May company Department store, but it was usually Highbee’s where we seemed
to find our hats. Highbee’s was located next to the Terminal Tower in
Cleveland, where the train station was located, then the Rapid Transit System
would come in to affect and that would be another way to get to the downtown
area. There was an outside entrance to the store or one that came from inside
the Terminal Tower into Highbee’s basement.
After what seemed
like hours, we found the right hats, discarding the fussy hats that had too
many flowers, the ones with the nets, or with the feathers. Mine was a straw
hat with the brim turned up like a sailor’s hat, with a few straw flowers
decorated along the wide satin ribbon. My mother’s hat was also a straw hat that
fit tight like an old fashioned man’s derby hat. It had a small feather stylish
tucked inside the ribbon on the hat band. My mother paid for our hats with her
Highbee’s credit card. We carried them in their hat boxes with the Highbee’s
name printed across the lid of the box.
Our
next stop was lunch at the Woolworth’s Dime Store. We sat at the long soda
fountain, which seemed to take up half of the store. This was what I had been
waiting for. Now I ordered my favorite: Pepsi Cola, and a turkey platter with
slices of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, beans, cranberry sauce, a
cloverleaf roll, and butter.
Afterward
we would shop in Woolworth’s, looking for whatever we needed to buy. We would
retrace our steps back to Highbee’s, stopping at another small shop, “The Nut
House,” and we would buy a small bag of warmed cashew nuts to take back home.
In
Highbee’s basement, we looked for shoes and gloves to match our hats. My Mom
would buy nylon stockings and socks for me. The last thing that we did before
we would go home was to stop at Highbee’s Frosty Bar. We couldn’t go back home
without at least one frosty malted drink. This delightful drink was served in a
small glass. It was a thick drink that seemed to melt from the warmth of my
hand. Sometimes, I might start the first sip with one of those awful brain
freezes only to end up with one of my last gulps of the melted drink splattering
in my face with a plop.
When
I was older and would go downtown with my best friend, because the frosty drink
cost 25 cents, we would actually drink four or five of them. It just seemed
that I could never get enough of this wonderful drink.
Then
we retrace our foot steps going back home, standing on Public Square and waiting for the bus to
return us safely back home. The evening was spent modeling our hats for my Dad,
who smiled and told us how beautiful we looked in them. Then we placed our
hatboxes in our closets.
Every time the
closet door was opened, the hat box was the first thing that Mom spotted,
pulled down, and opened. She would look at the hat with admiration, and
longing, anticipating the pleasure of putting the hat on her head again. This
ritual became a daily occurrence, while the days were counted and the
excitement mounted waiting for Easter Sunday, and the time when the hat would
finally be worn with an outfit, for show.
When
Easter Sunday finally arrived, the last item to go on was our new Easter hat. My
Dad would drive us to church, or we would walk if the weather was nice. Everyone
admiring each others Easter finery as well as their hats. A sea of hats would
be all you would see on Easter Sunday at church, along with the sweet smell orchid
corsages that were worn pinned onto the lapel of the women’s coats.
Somewhere
in the mid 60s, wearing hats stopped being the fashionable thing to do. The hat
departments and Millinery Shops started to close because wearing hats seemed to
go out of style. Or maybe Vatican 2 changed
things by ruling that woman no longer had to where hats to church.
Now on Easter
Sunday, as I sit in church in suburban Pennsylvania,
I notice a sea of people with different colored hair. Once in awhile someone
stands out with a hat on, and it is usually a woman in her 70s, a younger
stylish woman, or a little girl. This is when I think about those straw Easter
hats, and how much I miss the ritual that went along with buying them with my
Mom.
