Wikipedia tells us, “An Easter bonnet is any new or fancy hat worn by tradition as a Christian head covering on Easter. It represents the tail end of a tradition of wearing new clothes at Easter, in harmony with the renewal of the year and the promise of spiritual renewal and redemption.”
Those of a certain age fondly remember Fred Astaire and Judy Garland smiling on New York’s 5th Avenue as they strolled down the avenue in a delightful rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade.” When Berlin wrote his original melody in 1917, he called it “Smile and Show Your Dimple” as a World War l song. When it was published as “Easter Parade” in 1933, the depths of the Depression, the song became a hit.
Whether or not Ahnapee/Algoma ever had an Easter Parade is questionable, however there was no mistaking the parade of hats as women lined up for Easter Sunday communion in the city’s churches.
In the early 1900s, newspaper correspondents from such rural communities as Swamp Creek and Rio Creek to the City of Algoma reminded readership about spring hats and to hurry before it was too late.
Milliners – hat makers – found work in the community, now called Algoma, back almost to the earliest days. By the early 1900s – the era Fred and Judy sang and danced through – countless women from other areas came to Algoma to serve in a millinery establishment before moving to a larger areas. It was front page news when milliners such as Louise Paarmann Barnes, Lena Melchior, Minnie Kamer, and Mrs. Feight left town for Milwaukee or Chicago mercantiles and supply houses filled with the latest laces, beads, veils and other finery to purchase for milady’s newest chapeau.
In March 1877, Record editor Dewayne Stebbins was surely jesting when he told readership that spring hats looked like Mount Zion and were to be worn balanced on the left ear. He went on to say that hair was worn in “a la hay” mound with frizzed up and banged hair in front with more frizz and a tail hanging over the right shoulder. “Steb,” as he was often called, seemed to be criticizing earbobs when he declared anything from a church steeple to a barn door could be hung on the ears. Then he said, “One damphool” goes around town hallucinating that low spring hats will be worn. This is an error. No woman will wear a low spring hat – not if she knows herself.”
Did Editor Stebbins know Mrs. Frank Fax was waiting for the steamer to bring her new goods? Fax Bros. store sold millinery wares, although Mrs. Fax operated separate millinery parlors on the first floor of the Record building. Mrs. John Roberts announced her new stock as it arrived and mentioned that she worked at reasonable prices. Janda & Kwapil store location sold millinery items for women who wished to do their own work.
For at least ten years, Mrs. Fax seemed to be Ahnapee’s leading milliner. In May 1880, she announced her move from the corner of Steele and 3rd, over E. Decker’s store, although the papers did not tell readers where she moved. Perhaps she was so popular that every woman knew. Mrs. Fax said she had the finest stock ever seen in Ahnapee and was confident that she could please the most fastidious of women with her large, varied stock consisting of all the latest fashions. Those who called early would find the most complete stock. It seems as if Mrs. Fax invited area women, yearly, to stop and examine her stock, and then to judge for themselves that hers was the best.
It didn’t happen in Algoma, but it was big news in town in April 1901 when an elephant in Chicago grabbed an Easter bonnet from a woman’s head. The paper said not to find fault with the elephant because the woman’s hat was possibly so loud that it disturbed the elephant to such a state that it might have wanted to place the hat in his trunk as “lid.” Editors Ed Decker, Jr. and W.H. Machia had fun with that one. The Record Herald continued the jesting when the “Puerile Patter” column observed, “The smoked glasses in storage can now be exhumed for observing the Easter bonnet. Easter finery is not just a woman’s thing.
The flapper movement of the 1920s brought a change in hat styles. Bobbed heads explain the small, tight fitting, unpretentious hats that came into being. The smaller the hat was, the less trimmed it was. It became the line of the hat that was most important.
For Easter 1927, the fashionable woman sought a simple stone pin, a pearl or a black enamel pin as an embellishments to the close fitting hats of the period. Felt was sought after. Not only was it soft, if it got soaked with rain or snow, it was easily patted into shape for drying, thus far better than a straw hat. Black was in vogue in 1927. In hat color -either straw or felt – in ribbons, trims, bands, or jewels, the stylish wore black. If one chose a larger hat, sand, rose, orchid, soft blue, Alice blue, powder blue, navy blue, or any lighter blue were also fashionable. It was felt that floppy garden hats of horsehair were acceptable for summer wear, though for a spring hat, the wearer should consider what would be under the hat. Women were cautioned against buying anything without looking into a full-length mirror to see themselves from all angles.
Head coverings of some sort are found throughout U.S. history. By 1900, hats were a part of fashion dictating the well-dressed woman did not leave the house without one. Hats somewhat faded from the scene following World War ll, but by then mass-marketed sunglasses affected hat sales. However, the Catholic church required women to wear head coverings until 1967.
It wasn’t only women thinking of their Easter appearance. The son of a former county sheriff found his Easter duds in the paper and himself in jail.
The young Kewaunee man found himself in a Sturgeon Bay jail after he “decided to doff the somber colors of winter and appear in natty spring raiment.” It was the method of procurement that landed him in the slammer. Since the fellow was the son of the ex-sheriff, it appears he didn’t learn much, or maybe thought he’d get away with burglary. The fellow stole another new set of clothing in Kewaunee county and had them professionally altered.
The fellow had been making a name for himself as he was also running up bar bills, and when he was asked to settle at the Wolter Hotel on the southwest corner of 2nd and State/Navarino, he said he was transferring his business to the Kirchmann Hotel, saying his father had told him that anytime he traveled through Algoma, he should stop. He’d have been a lot happier if he kept on going, but Algoma was ripe for the pickin’s.
As it happened blacksmith Art Braun roomed at the Kirchman Hotel and it was there he hung his new spring suit. Four days later, Braun realized the suit was no longer there and, investigating, found the thief had taken the trousers to be shortened by another Algoma tailor before boarding the train for Sturgeon Bay. The nattily dressed younger man was finally found in the Town of Lincoln where he was visiting relatives.
As soon as Sturgeon Bay authorities learned the crook had been there before pulling off the Algoma caper, he was accused of burglarizing the Linden store in Sawyer, now the west side of Sturgeon Bay. After Sturgeon Bay cops gave him the “third degree,” he owned up to taking a suit and other wearing apparel on the night of March 12 after smashing Linden’s rear window. He was caught.
A few days before the apprehension, one matching his description had been seen in the vicinity of Capt. C.P. Clark’s store near the shipyard and took $12 from the cash register. If the burglar was indeed the Kewaunee man, perhaps he took the cash to pay for more natty clothing. As it turned out, Art Braun got his suit back, but then a tailor had to lengthen the “high waters” so Art could wear his new suit for Easter. Algoma had more to look at and talk about than hats in 1915.
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