Hats off to a fun 10th birthday

Elizabeth Bailey

April 21, 2008 12:07 pm

— This Thursday, about 40 area women will be attending an anniversary celebration for an organization that encourages them to live life to the fullest - The National Red Hat Society.
Locally, four clubs represent the national group. Classy Ladies of September Place and its queen, Ruthie Ainsworth, will be playing host to the event, which is taking place one day in advance of the official aniversary.
Live Fully Ladies and their queen, Candy Acra, Babes in Bonnets and their queen, Judy Glore, and The Red Hat Belles of Batesville and their queen Eleen Weisenbach will also be in attendence at September Place on Thursday. There, they, along with Ainsworth, will each be presented with a proclamation by Mayor Gary Herbert after they share a catered lunch.
Ainsworth started the Classy Ladies of September Place club four or more years ago, but that was not her first experience with the national organization. She also started a chapter in Gainsville, Fla. where she lived for many years. The members of the four area clubs vary greatly in age, but are bound together by the tennets of love, friendship and sharing the bonds of womanhood.
The Society began as a birthday gift, the website explains, a Californa woman named Sue Ellen Cooper presented a good friend with a poem called “Warning” by Jenny Joseph, also a red hat. While the idea was, the website continues, for the items to be used as decoration, other friends began to request the gift.
The poem expresses the idea that an old woman has the ability to do things she otherwise would be expected not to do, such as wearing purple with a red hat. In the end, it says perhaps a person should take the time to practice in advance. Therefore, the members of the Red Hat Society gather together, wearing red hats and purple dresses, to take time to have fun and enjoy their lives and their bonds.
While Ainsworth’s club usually follows the rules of purple with their red hats, this week’s celebration is cause to wear red dresses instead. The ladies, she said, enjoy the time together. Although they don’t usually head out on far-away adventures, they try to bring the adventure to themselves.