My grandmother was a classy dame. So classy, in fact, that she’d probably disapprove of my calling her a dame. She was a lady.
(When she died, and family gathered together to talk to the rabbi about her life, I remember my mom and aunt saying something like, “She never wore pants. Because ladies didn’t wear pants.” And in that moment my mind positively reeled, as though I was flipping through scene after scene with my grandmother from my childhood to the last time I saw her, and by golly they were right. I’d never realized it in those terms before, but that woman never wore pants. Only skirts. Only ever skirts.)
My grandmother wore hats, though, when it was fashionable to wear hats, and even when styles changed and ladies didn’t wear hats on a daily basis anymore, she kept most of her hats, the daily wear hats as well as those for fancy occasions. True, my grandmother was a skirt-wearing lady who never threw anything out, but I like to think she kept these hats not because she thought they’d come in useful someday — like the jewelry boxes filled with paper clips we kept finding in her desk drawers — but because she thought they might some day become heirlooms. Right now I think she held on to them because she knew someday I would have them, and even though they were meant to be worn, that I’d treasure them as works of art.
Because you guys — look at these hats.
The top one, with the hearts on the veil, is one of my favorites. I think it’s one of the older hats, from the 1940s maybe? And the bottom one intrigues me as well because I’ve never seen anything like it and have no idea when it’s from. All I really have are the labels inside to work from.
So I know that she purchased most of her hats from Field-Schlick, a now defunct department store whose flagship was in downtown St. Paul, on Wabasha and Fifth. I dug a little and found this photo of the Wabasha St. entrance in the Minnesota Historical Society’s online collection:
Although it’s more likely that my grandmother went to the store on S. Cleveland, since it was closer to her house (the house I grew up in).
I also found out that Field-Schlick used to be D. W. Ingersoll & Co. and opened in 1856. By 1896 it had become Field-Schlick, according to an advertisement I found in the St. Paul Globe. (The ad was for a sale on fancy parasols and something called “crash skirts,” but I couldn’t find any information online about what a crash skirt was.)
I do happen to have one of the hatboxes from Field-Schlick:
And one that might interest other native Minnesotans, from Dayton’s. Look at that old logo:
(Oh, Dayton’s. Now you are Macy’s. It’s a little sad.)
More hats:
This one strikes me as a winter hat. The beadwork suggests it was for nice outings like to the theater, but based on what I know of my grandmother I’m more inclined to guess that she wore it on a regular basis, like for shopping or lunch with the girls, or perhaps to normal Friday night services at the synagogue.
This one I can’t picture my grandmother wearing at all, even though it’s her favorite color. The style looks like it would be suited more for a young girl, so my guess would be that this was my mom’s or aunt’s:
I almost didn’t see this one when I was unpacking everything, but it must be part of a bridal veil.
And this one . . . this one simply takes my breath away.
How on earth did hats like this go out of style?
Ever since my grandmother’s hats came into my possession I’ve pondered the best way to display them — well, best and least expensive. I’m wary of simply hanging them as is because some of them are fragile and they’ve been preserved so well through the decades, I don’t want to be the one responsible for their decay. So I think a sort of acrylic box that could be wall mounted would be the way to go, but that’ll take some scratch, and I’m not there yet.
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