This old-fashioned song from my youth has been running through my mind all week. I find myself singing it at the strangest times (only to myself). I did sing a few bars out loud, in the privacy of my own home, and Emma said, “What is that song”? "What is an Easter Bonnet"? I explained to her how in years gone by, ladies would wear their finest hats on Easter Sunday.
I collect hats. I started with a dress-up box I created for Kelsey on one of her early birthdays and my mother-in-law contributed some hats that used to be her own mother’s. She still had the old hatbox too. I hung some of the hats on Kelsey’s wall when she was older and had a vintage-styled room and I now have a beautiful hat stand with a very diverse collection of hats, even a few worthy Easter bonnets. One of my favorite hats is a sheared beaver top hat. It is the only male hat that I have, but it has been well loved and used by Emma as she portrayed Abraham Lincoln at school and more recently as the Mad Hatter.
There is something about hats that maks me wish I had lived in the time when wearing a hat was mainstream fashion. I have been watching a TV mini-series called Mildred Pierce, based on a book by James M. Cain, that is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It is the story of housewife Mildred Pierce, a divorcee trying to support her family and maintain her social standing in a very challenging time. It was also an Oscar winning movie in 1945, of the same name, starring Joan Crawford.
The hats of that era have such a nostalgic appeal, but those were not very good times for women as far as independence and opportunity. These are uncertain times, and there are some similarities to the volatile economic climate of the 1930s, but we are blessed with many more conveniences and opportunities. Living in the present is a very good place to be and we can wear a hat if we choose to.
Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Sunday!
