Press Release

THE RED HAT MOMMAS AT SHAWNEE

Shawnee on Delaware, PA - July 15, 2004. Approximately 35 lovely ladies gathered at the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort on Wednesday, July 14 for a luncheon. The chapter calls themselves the "Red Hat Mommas" and they are out of Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania. The group is part of the national Red Hat Society.

Here is a little history on the organization.
While visiting a friend in Tucson several years ago, Sue Ellen impulsively bought a bright red fedora at a thrift shop, for no other reason than that it was cheap and, she thought, quite dashing. A year or two later she read the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, which depicts an older woman in purple clothing with a red hat. Sue Ellen felt an immediate kinship with Ms. Joseph. She decided that her birthday gift to her dear friend, Linda Murphy, would be a vintage red hat and a copy of the poem. She has always enjoyed whimsical decorating ideas, so she thought the hat would look nice hanging on a hook next to the framed poem. Linda got so much enjoyment out of the hat and the poem that Sue Ellen gave the same gift to another friend, then another, then another.

One day it occurred to these friends that they were becoming a sort of "Red Hat Society" and that perhaps they should go out to tea... in full regalia. They decided they would find purple dresses which didn't go with their red hats to complete the poem's image. The tea was a smashing success. Soon, each of them thought of another woman or two she wanted to include, and they bought more red hats. Their group swelled to 18, and they began to encourage other interested people to start their own. According to a RHS spokesperson, "today there are 27,188 chapters with over 500,000 members". For more information about RHS visit www.redhatsociety.com.

The Red Hat Mommas