For purple-wearing 'Red Hat Honey's,' 'It's time to have fun'
This story appeared in The Tennessean on Aug. 7, 2002.
By Roxye Arellano
Diversity Institute Fellow
08.14.02
When the Red Hat Honey’s (sic) enter Donelson Senior Center for their monthly meeting, all the smiles come out.
The 21 women, who hold membership in the group, are full of spunk, laughter and eagerness as they walk into the building at 108 Donelson Pike wearing purple outfits and red hats to sip tea, eat lunch and chit-chat once a month.
Their mission is simple: Women in their senior years — or heading toward them — gather with friends, leaving the everyday questions about getting older and what they did in their past at home. And they have a good time doing it.
"I’ve reached an age of knowing who I am in life,” said Toni Beard, considered the “queen mother” of the Donelson Red Hat Honey’s because she helped to birth the group. “Now, it’s time to have fun.”
The group started in November 2001 and is one of several Nashville chapters of the original Red Hat Society, which was started in 1999 by Sue Ellen Cooper, a California woman who got the idea after reading a poem written by Jenny Joseph called “Warning.” The poem says in part:
When I am an old woman ... I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me ... But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
Cooper, according to group lore, later bought a bright red Fedora and gave it to a friend along with a framed copy of the poem as a birthday gift. She eventually did the same thing for several other friends, and one day decided she wanted all of them to gather for tea, wearing the outfits as described in the poem.
Today, the society has now grown to more than 800 chapters and 13,000 members across the United States and Canada, the result of a movement among women who wanted to age with humor, eagerness and spirit, Beard said.
The group at the Donelson Senior Center started when the center’s Program Director Liz Martin asked Beard to organize the meetings. Beard and her friend, Brenda Boyd, who is the club’s “duchess,” arranged the registration and meeting times.
The Honey’s continue to be a largely social entity, Boyd said, but also address philanthropic issues in their meetings and visit with seniors at McKendree Village Retirement Community.
To become a Red Hat Honey, one must be a female at least “50 years young,” who is willing to wear purple clothes and a red hat, she said.
"I’d never wear purple and red together,” Boyd recalled saying after seeing herself for the first time in society-colored attire. “It was so funny.”
Now, Boyd finds she is often preoccupied with trying to find purple outfits, which she said are difficult to find because the color-scheme is not exactly the most popular one on the market.
"My children must think I’m a little crazy wearing the outfits,” Boyd said. “I have two twin granddaughters who are five and they look at our group photos and don’t have any idea as to what grandma is up to.”
With their bright outfits and ruby red hats, the group attracts attention everywhere members go.
"We would be in the senior center’s van and people would look up and smile at us with our red hats brimming,” Boyd said. “Some would even laugh.”
For information about starting a chapter, call Toni Beard at the Donelson Senior Center, 883-8375.