Back in the days when local people apparently focused far more attention on church services than they do now, the local ministerial alliance passed a resolution against, of all things, hats.

The edict was aimed at “those huge Merry Widow” hats that women were wearing to services. It was issued by the alliance about this time in 1908 and caused quite a stir among parishioners. The special headgear had made quite a hit in fashion centers such as New York and Paris that year and the fad apparently had caught on here.

It seems that a number of people going to local services felt their views of the pulpits and altars were being impeded by too many women in huge hats. So out came the ruling, after a fairly heated ministerial alliance session, that the Merry Widows had to come off once the wearers were settled in the pews.

An interesting sidelight was that a number of men, none of them pastors, were tongue-in-cheek displeased with the ruling because they felt the absence of hats left them vulnerable to detection if they dropped off to sleep during long sermons. They didn’t want the preachers or the people in front and back of them to be aware of their drowsy sinning, so they began a movement to abolish the resolution and “get back to normal.”

Understandably there were a number of women who chose to challenge the resolution. In one church, a pastor noted that there were more Merry Widow arrays than he ever had seen, apparently as a protest by the wearers.

The issue bubbled and boiled along for a while and eventually it was resolved to the reasonable satisfaction of most parties. But things at most services got a lot livelier for a while and some who hadn’t been to church for quite a while made several appearances just to see what was happening.

Local people apparently had more time to fret over frivolous things a century ago.