Lorraine Langbell-Marsh is a woman who wears a lot of different hats.
“Every hat tells a story, “she says.
And her collection only continues to grow.
“2,400 hats and more are coming in.”
Lorraine says she’s always had a thing for hats. It seems to run in her family.
“Well, my mother was a hat person and she sold hats wore hats and thought hats were a natural part of life—so of course I did too,” she says.
Her collection includes about every kind of hat you can imagine—different styles, different colors, different eras.
Some are pretty fancy. She’s showing off one of her first hats that she collected. It was given to her when she was performing in a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” at Billings Studio Theatre.
“Can you see how appealing it is? I just think something like that should be seen. And it’s been in a number of hat shows,” she says.
Lorraine says she bought about half of the hats in her collection—the others were given to her over the years.
While most of her collection is made up of women’s hats, she also has some men’s hats—including the caps that were worn by Montana artist and Bataan Death March survivor Ben Steele.
“People have been very anxious to put their hats where they are respected because a lot of them belong to relatives, and they don’t want to just toss them here or there. And people have even left them for me in their will,” she says.
Some of her hats date back hundreds of years like one made in 1779 that belonged to her great-grandmother.
Some are quite unique like a “hair hat” that is also from the 1700s.
“Washing your hair was something you did every single day back in the day. So, the women when their hair started to get not so great looking, they would wear these hats thinking they looked more like hair and how beautiful they were,” she says.
Lorraine believes her collection, which is mostly displayed in three large rooms at a local storage company, is one of the largest active hat collections of its kind
She still puts on shows with some of the hats—something she has done over the years to help raise funds for various causes.
“I give a little historical story about it. And that way we kind of tie history into everything,” she says.
She worked in education for nearly 50 years and says her favorite was made by some of her students where they traced their hands and signed their names.
“Do I miss them? Terribly,” she says.
That’s the story behind her favorite hat, but as she says every hat tells a story—and there are a lot of stores to be told from her collection.
“It just brings joy to so many people. I think that’s the number one thing. I mean doesn’t it make you happy?” she says.
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