by Nancy Besonen
Doreen Zagar has done it again! The “Yooper Gals” celebrated the pioneer spirit Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017 with horse & wagon rides and a big spread at Zagar’s in L’Anse. The former Red Hat Society club gone rogue marches to the beat of its own drum. Last Tuesday, Doreen was the drummer. Women dressed as all manner of pioneers, from dance hall girls (Faye Lozier) to a “poor pioneer woman busy baking biscuits” (Ruthy Brown) to a pistol-packing outlaw (that would be Doreen) gathered at Zagar’s for an afternoon of food, friendship and fun. Guests gathered at Zagar’s bar (“saloon”) indoors, visited on lawn chairs outside or cruised, as. Dean Wascher of Greenland drove groups of happily waving Yooper Gals around town in his horse-drawn wagon–with one Gal toting a toy rifle riding shotgun on the back. “We meet once a month, and once a year I host a great big one,” Doreen explained prior to the event. “This year I’m doing ‘Pioneer Day.’ I’ve got a horse and wagon coming out of Greenland, and you should see the menu! I’m going all out. This is what I like to do.” It’s all in the spirit of the Red Hat Society, an international social organization that encourages women to get together, get out and have fun. The movement began with a poem by Jenny Joseph titled, “Warning,” whose opening line sets both the tone and dress code for the organization: “When I am an old women, I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.” To read more, subscribe to the L’Anse Sentinel online, or buy a print copy at our local retailers.