THE ANCESTOR HAT PARADE

 

My husband’s ancestors:  His Grandmother Daisy May Elizabeth Young, her husband (or husband-to-be?), Fred Latham Perlee, and her sister whose name we don’t know.  Fred is wearing a rather frumpy-looking straw hat, and the girls are sporting quite the elaborate chapeaux.

Daisy in the center with Fred on her left.  Don’t know who is on her right?  The fellows in bowlers, and Daisy in a simple flatish hat.  No idea why they’re all carrying flowers?

My husband’s maternal grandmother, Lillian Ross Pringle Brasier on the left on her wedding day in 1909 with one of her older sisters.  Lillian was dressed in a suit, ready to depart with her new husband on their honeymoon.

A hat and frilly bonnets for all three: Lillian Ross, c.1914, with her two daughters Phyllis, and Virginia Rossmore Braiser – my husband’s mother.

Lillian Ross Pringle Braiser c. 1925 in a cloche hat.

More cloche hats:  Lillian Ross and daughter, Virginia, c.1926-27.

And now on to my ancestors: Mary Gould Chase, my paternal 3xs great grandmother in a bonnet.

My paternal great grandfather, John Kinsey Smedley, in his Union Navy hat in 1862 during the Civil War.

J.K.’s older brother, my paternal great great Uncle Issac Smedley in his Union Army cap c.1862

My paternal great grandmother Ella Chase Taylor Smedley (J.K.) wearing a hat she most likely created herself as she worked with a milliner making hats.

Ella and J.K.’s daughter, Harriet (Hattie) Bell Smedley, my paternal grandmother, wearing a sandwich box ‘hat’ on her head at the beach in San Francisco, for fun.  She would have been about 16.

Hattie Bell Smedley Bradley and Frank Herbert Bradley on their honeymoon, June 1906 – he in a bowler, and she in a white hat with upturned brim filled with white flowers.

Hattie Bell Smedley Bradley in 1913

Frank Herbert Bradley in his Fedora in 1915

Hattie & Frank in the 1920s – Hattie in a cloche style hat, and Frank in a flat cap.

Frank’s older sister, Helen Bradley, in a feathery creation.

My Dad, Herbert Kinsey Bradley, in a Fedora and moustache which my Mom didn’t like, so he shaved it off. J

My Mom, Lillian Adelle Whitney, in a 1930s hat tilted smartly to the side.

Many hats in these next three photos in 1939 on my parents’ wedding day.  L-R: My paternal Grandfather Frank Herbert Bradley, my maternal Grandmother Bertha Louise Parton Whitney, my Dad Herbert Kinsey Bradley, and Mom Lillian Adelle Whitney Bradley in her veiled wedding hat, and my paternal Grandmother Harriet (Hattie) Bell Smedley Bradley. 

My just married parents flanked by, L-R: my Dad’s sisters Ruth, Frances, and Harriet with Harriet's husband, my Uncle Charles Mors.  Although she was named after her mother, my Aunt Harriet was never called Hattie.

L-R: Standing: A visiting friend or distant relative (in more ways than one) from Australia, my Grandma Louise, my Grandma B. (Bradley), my Mom’s best friend Natalie and her mother Mrs. Fickett, the Aussie’s wife, and my Uncle Charles.  Seated:  my Aunt Ruth, and the Aussies’ daughter, Sylvia Joan whom I met many years later at a family reunion at Lake Tahoe.  I don’t know if Sylvia Joan was related to my father's family through her mother or her father, or whether the family moved to the U.S., or whether she married a U.S. citizen and made her home with him here?  In any case, her married name was Waters, and she was living in Northern California when I met her.

And thus ends the parade of ancestors in hats.

:-> 

La Nightingail