The Purple Hat



The Purple Hat

The hat was purple velvet, with a large, thin gray veil. Memaw loved that hat. Aunt Sis had sent it. Anything Aunt Sis sent was endeared by Memaw. Aunt Sis was the only one of her children that she felt had “made good” of herself.

The hat intensified a longing that Memaw had expressed several times. She had wanted a purple tailored suit for some time. Feed sacks didn’t come in solid purple. They didn’t come in anything purple except for a faded purple print that
was more gray than purple.

Years before the hat arrived, Aunt Sis had given Memaw a lapel watch, made with beautiful gold filigree and very expensive. Never mind she didn’t have a lapel to pin it on. I guess she was supposed to pin it on the shoulder of her feed sack dress, which she did every time we went to church or a funeral. The watch brought about an intense yearning for a tailored suit with a lapel to pin the watch on. Why a purple one I don’t know. Memaw was such a giving, unassuming person, never expressing a need or want, that I as well began to yearn for this suit for her.

The span of time she yearned for this suit becomes blurred, but I know it was in excess of two years. Memaw and I would sit together as she sewed something for one of her customers. She would have the Sears catalog nearby, marked to the fabrics. There she would have penned a heavy circle around one of the purple fabric swatches. She would wistfully say, “When I get paid for this dress I am making, I’m going to buy that material.” But, when she got paid, she would
invaribly buy one of us something we needed, or wanted.

One day, as was her custom, Aunt Sis cleaned out her closets and sent us a box of things. In the box was that beautiful purple velvet hat with the gray veil. She often sent us her cast-offs to us for dress-up play. But such was not to be the fate of the purple hat.
“This will go with my purple suit when I make it. Sis must have meant it for me," Memaw told us, as she grabbed it for herself. We didn’t argue. We had plenty of others: a pink shiny one, a blue wool tam, and several black ones of varying styles. Memaw could have the purple one.

The purple hat seemed to increase Memaw’s yearning for the purple suit. I would often go into her bedroom when we were getting ready for church and Memaw would have the purple hat on. She would quickly take it off, saying, “It doesn’t match anything. I will have to wait for my purple suit.” She would gently wrap it in its tissue paper and store it away carefully.

It was about a year after we got the purple hat that Mrs. Bennett, a frequent customer, brought Memaw some fabric and a pattern. For a tailored suit, no less! No, it wasn’t purple. It was black. But, it was a suit. It seemed to increase Memaw’s yearning even more. She began to talk in earnest about her purple suit. She found some purple faille fabric in the catalog. It was five dollars a yard. The pattern called for four yards. But, Mrs. Bennett was only paying her fifteen dollars for making the suit.

“Maybe I can borrow five dollars from your grandad,” Memaw said. Memaw and Grandad kept their finances totally separate.

"I can use Mrs. Bennett’s pattern." Customers often gave her the patterns when she was done making their garment.

I never believed Memaw would get the material. I had heard it too many times. However, about a week later Memaw handed me a package the mail carrier had delivered that day. She began to tenderly tear the brown paper away. I peered inside to see what she had ordered for me. It must be mine, because she waited on me to come home to open it.

What finally emerged from that brown paper? The most garish piece of purple faille you could imagine. I mean, purple wasn’t a good description. It was called Royal Purple in the catalog, Memaw explained. I know Memaw isn’t going to wear that, I thought. But, wear it she did, after she had lovingly crafted it into a tailored suit, with lapels for her lapel watch.

Though she never said anything, I know she felt like a queen every time she put on that purple suit, pinned on her lapel pin, and centered the purple velvet hat on her snowy white hair, adjusting the veil so it would cover just the top right quarter of her face.