Hats off for the Chariton High School Class of 1907

This is an image of Miss Alma Clay (1872-1928), one of Chariton's most highly regarded educators, peering out from beneath a magnificent hat of the sort fashionable at the turn of the 20th century. The hat is seasonably inappropriate for May, but was the best I could come up with to illustrate scale while trying to recapture the atmosphere inside First Methodist Church on Sunday evening, May 19, 1907, as friends and family gathered to hear the Chariton High School Class of 1907's baccalaureate sermon.

In order to appreciate the following report from The Leader of May 23, it is necessary to climb in your imagination into the balcony at the north end of the auditorium, above the Sunday school room --- long since sealed off --- and look down upon a sea of springtime flowers and feathers, butterflies and bows riding high on broad-brimmed headgear below.

He headline reads, "Harder than pulling teeth" ---

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The following illustrates the pride the ladies take in their head gear and the hold on them by the fashionable milliner. At the Methodist church on Sunday evening there was a large audience assembled to hear the baccalaureate sermon by Rev. McCullagh and the great auditorium resembled a vast flower garden, with humming birds and feathers interspersed, until the male portion of the congregation was hid away like weeds under the blossoms. It was impossible to see out.

Rev. Fred Palmer arose and requested that the ladies remove their hats. There was a silent sigh permeating the auditorium, a hesitance and then slowly the domes were dismantled. "But it was like pulling teeth," as the saying is.

One lady was observed to clutch her hat with both hands, survey the landscape o'er, halt, remove the anchors two or three times, fasten them tighter into her switch, reach into her mouth, remove her false teeth and then settle back into her seat with an air of relief --- but her hat didn't come off. It is to be surmised that she thought a penance had been asked for her presence and she chose between two physical tortures.