The "Summer Tea on the Porch" Hat Contest

I am still savoring the wonderful time I had at the Senoia Area Historical Society’s “Summer Tea on the Porch” on Saturday. Yes, it turns out, you CAN host 40 ladies for tea on your front porch if your front porch is big enough, and the Pearman porch was indeed. Here, the historical society’s Nancy Roy, at right, thanks the historical society’s president, Dub Pearman, for hosting the tea.

And here is Mrs. Dub, Mary Pearman, at left, along with SAHS Museum Director Maureen Schuyler, whose birthday happened to be Saturday. I was so pleased when Maureen won one of the raffle prizes!

Whenever someone wasn’t speaking, I was trying to take in all of the pretty decorating the tea's organizers did, and I just know I missed some things. Still, isn’t this a gorgeous teacup?

And all the tables had pretty fresh floral arrangements. Charming!

Several of those attending the tea shared teacup stories, including Gloria Downing, who brought a teacup that was a gift to her from her grandfather on her wedding day. Isn’t it wonderful she still has it and brought it to share?

Salli Rees shared a sweet story about an aunt and uncle who were like a second set of parents to her, and from them she inherited a Japanese tea set with this teacup.

And Martha Gill Clark, who will soon turn 90, shared a small teacup she bought on a trip to New York in 1947. You can just imagine how charming it was to hear all these great stories "live" on the porch. I'm sure I was beaming as I sipped my tea, and I’ll bet some of you are smiling even as you read their stories!

But on to the Hat Contest! I served as a judge along with Danny Harrison of the East Coweta Journal, at left, and Coweta County Commissioner Paul Poole, at right. I couldn’t have had nicer gentlemen to serve with. Someone who’d heard the judges would be a woman and two men said, “Oh, in other words one judge and you two men just go along with her decision, right?” I thought that was funny, but I must say the two of them did have their own opinions about who should be honored, so we agreed on a winner but also added two Honorable Mentions, which was a perfect solution. (Danny, interestingly enough, was serving as a missionary in England and met his wife there — and tea was involved! Definitely hoping I get to meet her at some point.)

Our Hat Contest winner was pretty easy to spot. It was Cheryl Bains, whose lavender pansy hat was pretty and looked summertime perfect with her dress, but what sold us all on it was that cute little china teacup she had hot-glued to the side!

Here’s a close-up of the side with the teacup, which she told me she can pop off and use again if she likes. I thought we should give extra points for her creativity (or creativi-tea), and the other judges agreed!

We also agreed we were especially impressed by one of the vintage hats and one of the more modern hats, so we gave honorable mentions to those as well. So here are our winners: Katie Rees, with the modern style hat; overall winner Cheryl Bains; and Martha Gill Clark with her pretty vintage pink hat.

And the generous hostess, Mary Pearman, apparently loves to decorate hats and allowed me to select from a rack on the porch one of her own hats to take home with me, so I chose this gorgeous rose one with peachy pink colors to match my outfit. (Maureen Schuyler kindly sent me this photo after the tea!) I hope you've enjoyed hearing about “Summer Tea on the Porch” half as much as I enjoyed attending this lovely and most memorable tea!