Back in the days when ladies wore hats, it wouldn't have beenunusual to see a woman wearing a red cloche or red pillbox, but evenin that bygone era, the sight of 16 women in red hats and purpledresses would have occasioned a glance or two. So, of course, such agroup elicits murmurs when the women take their seats at a varnishedtable at the Sunday gospel brunch at Dick's Last Resort near CopleySquare.
'Ladies,' says waitress Lynne Olson, 'you look lovely today.'
Thus starts the maiden meeting of the Grande Dame Groupe, theMedford chapter of the Red Hat Society, attended also by threemembers of a fledgling Back Bay chapter named the Boston BakedBeings. Started as a lark by a few friends in California, the Red HatSociety has, in the last 21 months, grown to 1,700 chapters of womenover 50 gathering for no more serious purpose than having fun andconnecting with other women willing to appear in public, en masse, inred hats and purple dresses. In April, 750 women are expected inChicago for the society's first convention.
Taking their cue from a Jenny Joseph poem ('When I am an old womanI shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go . . . '), thewomen buck a youth-obsessed culture and proclaim, rather than hide,the fact that they're old enough to join the AARP (which no longercalls itself the American Association of Retired Persons).
Beyond the ample frivolity that characterizes the Red Hat Society,the simple reality is that with the years come life experiences morethan sufficient to warrant a little convivial silliness.
'We need to laugh more at this stage of the game,' says JosephineFagan, 73, a retired seamstress who lives in Medford and has'arthritis really bad.' She has rhine stones on her dress and aplastic diamond the size of a small egg on her hand. 'You need toforget yourself and look forward in life instead of backward, ' shesays.
Diane Maruzzi, a 56-year-old seamstress from Saugus, snapspictures with a digital camera. She made the purple, glittery bandthat trims her red felt hat, and draped her granddaughter's red boaaround her neck. When Maruzzi clicks her camera back to show an imageof her quadriplegic son, she's at once a grown-up girl playing dress-up and a woman sharing her life story with other women. Her son wasinjured 15 years ago playing high school hockey. 'If he can get upevery day and face life, everyone can,' she says.
Watching her now, it's hard to believe Maruzzi was reticent aboutjoining. 'I wasn't coming until two days ago,' she says. 'I wasn'tsure. Purple outfit? Red hat? Come on.' Sharyn Pulsifer, 53, thefounder (or Queen Mother) of the Back Bay group, arrived carryingher broad-brimmed red hat concealed in a plastic bag.
The women in red hats join the jeans-and-jersey crowd around abuffet table laden with bacon and bread pudding and melon. Onstage,the Silver Lining Gospel Singers, in sequins and black, praise theLord. Catherine Mitchell, 55, Queen Mother of the Medford chapter,shows off the floppy vintage hat ('something you'd see in an old JohnGarfield movie') and red, ruffled fishnet gloves she found in athrift shop. Rose Rose, a craftswoman from Reading whose hat sports ared rose, never would have done something like this when she wasyounger ('I was probably the most shy human being in the entireworld,' she says), but now that she is 66, a widow for 15 years whowent to work and started 'a whole new life,' she doesn't hesitate.'People move away. Husbands die. You lose connection with your socialcircle,' she says. 'Here, the only purpose is to have fun and meetnew people, which is very hard to do.'
The Silver Lining sing 'Glory, Glory.' Whether it's the beatthat's contagious or the hats that loosen the mood, or both, thewomen start to twirl their cloth napkins overhead. Linda Dawson, a 47-year-old Internal Revenue Service manager from Salem watching fromthe next table, is curious, and when she learns the club's purpose,she says, 'I'm going to get a red hat on my 50th birthday.' Shecould, however, join now and wear a pink hat and lavender dress.
The genesis of the Red Hat Society goes back to 1998, when SueEllen Cooper of Fullerton, Calif., gave friends a red hat and theJoseph poem on their birthdays. Five of them went to tea one day,wearing the hats and purple dresses, and soon friends in Florida didthe same. In May of 2000, Romantic Homes magazine published a story,a third chapter then sprouted in Texas, and a movement was launched.'Our culture has made women a little irrelevant after 50, a littleinvisible,' says Cooper, 57. 'We're trying to make 50 something tolook forward to rather than dread.'
The society's Web site lists chapters in 44 states and theDistrict of Columbia, and in nine other countries from Mexico to Australia. There are 17 chapters in Massachusetts, enough to make themanager of at least one vintage clothing store notice a blossominginterest in red hats. 'They're selling really fast,' says ElizabethDonovan of the Garment District in Cambridge. 'I try to make sure wehave lots of hats, and when they come I'll dig through and find thered ones.'
Over chocolate-dipped strawberries and coffee, the Grandes Damesand Baked Beings are percolating ideas for their newly formedchapters. Maybe they could lend their presence to charitable causesthat could use some womanpower. What about a day trip to Portland,Maine, via train? 'We could pick up chapters along the way,' saysPulsifer, who owns a seasonal home furnishing shop in Wolfeboro, N.H.
There are women here who've known one another for years - thesister and high school classmates of Mitchell, who founded theMedford group after she ran into red-hatted women in Florida - andwomen meeting each other for the first time. Barbara Tutt, a 53-year-old legal secretary from South Boston, heard about the Red HatSociety from a neighbor of her sister in Ohio, and is here with nomore link than that. 'It struck me as an organization for women otherpeople might think are eccentric,' Tutt says. 'I said, `OK, I'll dothis.' '
The Silver Lining Gospel Singers belt out 'This Little Light ofMine' and the women in red hats let it shine, standing and clappingto the beat. Diane Bass, 52, an administrative assistant fromSomerville who has battled breast cancer, is swaying, bouncing,actually, to the music, one arm around 82-year-old Eleanor Baird,whom she's just met and who is a model for how Bass, if she's lucky,hopes to grow old herself. With her other hand, Bass lightly touchesthe back of Kathryn Coleman, her friend of a quarter-century. Colemanspends a few hours every other day in a nursing home, visiting amother whose Alzheimer's has stolen the memory of her daughter's nameand the years she spent making ceramic vases and chaperoning a churchyouth group.
'I don't want a day to go by,' Bass says, 'that I don't enjoymyself.'
