Bessie Easley’s bonnet stand

 

Teaching sample bonnet on my great grandmother’s bonnet stand.

I shared about this piece on instagram and thought I’d write a bit more about it in a blog post. 

I had never seen this bonnet stand, which belonged to my great grandmother Bessie Easley, until it arrived in a package along with three of her hats, from a distant relative. I know nothing of its origin, but I do know her husband was a handyman and woodworker, and that she and her children ran the farm they lived on so she likely wore a field bonnet while working outdoors. 

Field bonnets were homemade headwear with deep brims and long ruffles at the nape of the neck (bavolets) to protect the wearers from sun while working outdoors. They would be damp with sweat at the end of the workday and a bonnet stand like this one would help them dry out overnight. 

You can see in the image above that even fancy bonnets have design features that make such a tall stand useful, such as a deep crown like the one in the photo. Fashionable bonnets also retained the design feature of the nape ruffle, aka the bavolet. 

Bonnet stand at left, typical hat stand at right

Here you can see a comparison between the bonnet stand, and a much shorter hat stand.

I wish I knew more about the provenance of this piece—where my great grandmother got it, how she used it, etc., but she passed away back in 1979 and all of that information is lost.

I know she was a strong, tough woman who lived the majority of her life in rural Tennessee without electricity or indoor plumbing. She had eight children who survived to adulthood and I believe 12 total. My mother has a photograph of her with my infant grandfather, which she had made because at least one of her prior children died in infancy before he was born and she wanted to remember him if he died. Infant mortality was much more prevalent then. 

I also know that she loved to make doilies like the one pictured below.

One of many doilies she made

Rest in peace, Bessie. I bet she would be tickled to know her great granddaughter uses her old bonnet stand to display fancy theatrical bonnets of the sort I make!