Crowns
Back before Corridors with alphabet names dotted the landscape with wide open pathways for comfortable travel, I would walk to visit my grandmother. It took walking through three backyards and down a long hill to cross Oakwood Road before I could reach her house, my father's home place. On Saturdays and Sundays I would make the trip on my short, little 6-year-old legs. I went shopping on Saturdays and to church on Sundays with my Grandma. It was exciting, a trip into an adult world. It had expectations and rules. I ignored the discomfort of patent leather shoes and crinkly petticoats to spend a day as a young lady in the company of a strong, respected woman.
Nothing brings back that memory so much as opening the drawer where her hankies and gloves are kept, smelling the lavender and seeing her hat pins. Oh, yes! There were hats. It was the required costume for any proper young lady and not just on Easter Sunday either. Grandma Mary Susan Price Turley had expectations about the behavior of young girls and those hats meant many things to her and to me.
Hats covered our heads in church and meant reverence. They showed a sense of style and formality. Little girls in hats didn't get their knees dirty playing ball. Hats showed a respect for traditions that were important to my grandmother and they showed our frugality and ability to "make do" because we had many hats in bright cardboard canisters lining the top of the wardrobe. Besides all that, hats were theatrical! They showed confidence and style. Hats changed the person wearing them. It is little wonder that, as an adult entering my 54th year I still have a love of the theatrical and a fondness for hats. I consider myself a community artist, acting and directing for Kanawha Players. My husband, Jeff, and I currently serve as the artistic team for the 85-year-old organization. Through our work in the community, we meet and learn from many talented people.
So several years ago, when a wonderful book titled "Crowns" was released, I immediately bought a copy.
Page after page of exquisite black and white photographs showed the grace and strength, the style and attitude of southern black women of praise and their HATS! I was enthralled. I then learned that a play with music had been written based on the book. How could I find out more about this wonderful story? How could I help bring it to our community? I shared these questions with my friend Crystal Good.
Crystal, a talented local costumer, model, mother of three, organizer of live poetry events and a Jackson Kelly communications and project manager, told me a story about her grandmother and hats. Her story helped me understand that my experience was not unique. Hats, their place in each culture and community, have not been displaced but continue to connect generations of women. Crystal's story not only mirrored some of my own experiences with my grandmother, but it illustrated the six degrees of separation theory. Jackie Titcher, Crystal's grandmother, had been a costumer for Kanawha Players and a lover of all things theatrical. She shared her enthusiasm for creativity with her granddaughter. Our connections grew.
Crystal spent much of her childhood visiting her grandmother's home on Charleston's Historic East End. Props, costumes and theatrical things ended up as part of the décor of the Quarrier Street home. Visits there pushed her already budding interest in fashion, theater and the arts. Former Charleston Newspaper fashion writer, Connie Riley Shearer lived next door. Granny Titcher kept a trunk full of hats, dresses and costume pieces where a creative child could be anyone or anything. The stage was set. When Granny Titcher retired, she relocated to Blackshear, Georgia. During a two year battle with cancer, her wonderful hats were boxed and stored. When she passed away in January, it was during the run of Charleston Stage Company's "for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf." Following in her grandmother's footsteps, Crystal was the costumer for the production.
A few weeks later, much sooner than the estate could have been settled, a box arrived in Charleston for Crystal. Inside were the glorious hats, with all the style and flair, creativity and theatricality of their owner. More than 25 hats from tacky to tasteful were lovingly packed inside. The box had made its way north, from uncle to uncle to Crystal's mother who delivered them to her. It was important that the box be delivered soon, that this tradition be maintained and that Crystal stay involved in her creative work. Granny Titcher saw to it.
Crystal's own childhood memories of hat-wearing take her back to church. As an independent 8 year old, already aware of her own unique style, she painstakingly dressed herself for Sunday services-hat, gloves and patent leather shoes. Not just any Sunday service, but Easter Sunday. Pleased with her appearance and accomplishment she seated herself in the pew.
The message of the sermon that Sunday was "Easter is NOT just about getting gussied up." Crystal cried softly from her seat, until the pastor saw her tears and redirected his message, "But it IS good to look your best for the Lord."
On a recent visit to Hallelujah Wings, a restaurant/business operated by the First Baptist Church in Charleston under the spiritual direction of Reverend Paul Dunn, I ordered lunch for my parents and my family. As I waited for my food to be prepared, I sat at one of the glass-topped tables sprinkled throughout the restaurant. Under each of the glass tops were photographs of the congregation-in praise, working in the community, having fun and celebrating.
There were recent photographs and historic ones. Beautiful hats rose from the heads of the women like flowers in a garden adding color and interest to the full congregation shots.
Bessie Anderson, who attends First Baptist Church, grew up in Monroe County in the small community of Ballard. Her mother, Sadie Agee Hamilton and her aunts were all well known for their hats. Mainly hats were for church or for special occasions, but even working in the garden brought out the wide brimmed straw hats. As children Bessie and her seven sisters wore bonnets which their mother made. Just to make it more special, mother always made a matching one for herself.
It is little wonder that Bessie is well known for her hats today. How many hats does she have? "I really haven't counted them," Bessie says, but a few days later she pulled them out and counted 94. Is there a favorite? No she loves and wears them all. "I pick them according to my mood," Bessie says.
Her collection of hats has waxed and waned over the years. In the 1970s she had many, many hats, but as fashion drew away from the wearing of hats Bessie boxed them up and stored them in her attic. After a few years, she got rid of the collection. As fate would have it, fashion doubled back and caught her without her hats. She ended up purchasing hats just like the ones she had just thrown away.
Shopping for hats is a joy for Bessie. When traveling to visit family and friends they often take her hat shopping. Favorite shopping locations include Dillard's in Ohio and Belk in Charlottesville. One of her favorite finds was a surprise at TJ Maxx in South Charleston. On her last visit to Portsmouth, Virginia she bought five hats.
There are hat wearing people and those who just prefer not to, but most folks have an understanding that hat wearing takes some panache. People look at you a little differently when you are wearing a hat. Whether hat wearing is a family tradition or your own unique sense of style; a sense of respect or the desire to be noticed; a love of shopping or a fashion maven-if the truth be told, there is just something about a woman in a hat.
