AJ Marcey stands among the hat boxes from different parts of the world. She’s modeling the hat her granddaughter, Kaitlin Marcyan, borrowed for her high school graduation in 2020 Shirley Boatman/MUNCY LUMINARY

Remember when most women wore hats everywhere? Not for warmth or for shade. For respect and style. Men too, for that matter, but that’s another story.

Hughesville resident Alice Jane Marcey, known to some as A.J, remembers those days fervently and fondly and has the hats to prove it. Her one-time collection of 80 hats had to be cut in half when she down-sized from a 13-room house to a six-room apartment a few years ago. That leaves 40 hats to enjoy, wear, share and reminisce about.

“Some of these hats belonged to my mother, Esther Andrews, and some are from my sister, Pauline Montgomery’s collection,” Alice Jane says. Asked about her interest in hats, she replies that it came from those same sources. “We all wore hats most places we went. I got serious about my own collection when I chose a special hat to go with my sister, Pauline, to Bill Clinton’s inauguration.”

Purchases of Alice Jane’s special chapeaus were made in Paris, New York City, Philadelphia, Hughesville and Lewisburg over the years.

Friends recently gathered at Alice Jane’s home to have some fun trying on different hats. “Oh yes,” Stossie Sheehan remarks, “We wore hats and gloves to church, and to go shopping in the Williamsport stores.” Jeanne Sinsabough recalls those main Williamsport stores, “Stearn’s and Brozman’s.” “And The Carroll House,” Kathy Fought adds. “I remember wearing hats when we went to the movies, and pretty much everywhere,” Alice Jane says. “I still wear them every time I go out of the house.”

Shirley Boatman/MUNCY LUMINARY

As a woman, covering your head in most churches was considered an homage to a higher power, and in some churches, a matter of law. Dressing up and donning a fancy hat was for years a custom of respect and a welcome sharing of fashion in churches and many other venues.

The head-covering custom began waning in 1983 when the Catholic Church did not reissue its 1917 canon requiring head veils, thereby essentially repealing the requirement. There are many sources which discuss the history of these canons and customs and the puzzling differences between the expectations for men’s and women’s hat etiquette. But that’s also another story.

Alice Jane Marcey elegantly and happily carries on the lovely head-covering custom in bright and varied fashion as she ventures around our local area.