Join the Lopez Library for the joy and whimsy of Anita Stone’s hat collection. We are convinced you cannot browse this exhibit without the glimmer of a smile. Just in time for spring. Anita shared the following with the library: “I was already collecting hats at age 13 when a big article in the Everett Herald newspaper came out. A local gal had 500 hats! What a challenge. A few years ago my collection reached over 1,000. I stopped counting and told myself not to buy anymore. Back when I started, thrift stores did not realize the value of the hats from the Glory Years of wearing hats. You did not go out, man or woman, without something on your noggin. So I scored several works of millinery art. While working in produce at the new food Co-op in Everett I wore a different hat every day. Lacking plants or display items, I brought in a new display of hats each month for the top of the produce case. Customers seemed to enjoy it and brought beautiful hats to GIVE to me! Thus became my title ” The Hat Lady”. In our small house in Lake Stevens, one room was devoted to the collection. Every wall and the ceiling were covered. I built a floor to ceiling hat tower.”