New Haven Independent

The Pooles (pictured) attended the event at the Savin Rock Conference Center in West Haven just a week before their 35th anniversary. Organized by Concerned Citizens for the Greater New Haven Dixwell “Q” House, the event brought out dozens of people, disproportionately women.

(Could it be that women are more partial than men to fancy hats?)

The Q House, which opened in the 1920s, closed its doors in 2003 due to financial problems and questions about mismanagement. Organizers have said they’d be willing to see it reopen in a venue outside of the Dixwell neighborhood. (Click here for background.)

Jerry Poole didn’t like that idea. “I think the brand is historic; it should be preserved,” he said. He said it shouldn’t be called the Dixwell Q House if it’s not in Dixwell.

Teddi Glover (pictured) had her own fond connections to the Q. “It has been a special place that moms and dads could leave their children and not have any worries.” She just retired from a 50-year career providing day care to pre-schoolers, and many of those years she operated out of the Q House.

One of the first persons spotted inside the door was Concerned Citizens president Jacqueline Bracey (on left with fellow organizer Curlena McDonald). McDonald was wearing the only baseball cap-type hat in the place. She proudly showed off the logo of Granville Academy, a program she’s run for years out of the Hospital of St. Raphael to train eighth through twelfth graders in business skills — just the kind of program that in past years would have operated out of the Q House.

Bob Rosenberg (pictured), the president of the West Haven Chamber of Commerce, stopped by, hatless. When offered an available hat, he declined. “I don’t do hats,” he stated. Then he joked that the reason he didn’t wear his “fancy hat,” as the flyer urged, is that his was just like Carroll Brown’s, and “I wouldn’t do that to you,” that is, wear the same hat.

NAACP leader Jim Rawlings arrived hatless. He went back to his car to retrieve this straw beauty.

Fran Goekler-Morneau (pictured) came out to support the Q House, although she admitted, “This isn’t the kind of hat I usually wear.” She worked with Project Concern in the 1970s, a voluntary desegregation program that bused black inner city children to suburban schools. She was assigned to North Haven schools, and her office was at the Q House. She said the two groups of children were able to build bridges between city and suburb as they got to know each other and learned from each other.

Brown, a West Haven resident who marshaled her considerable organizing skills for this event, was wearing one of the more original chapeaus of the evening (pictured on the right with, from left, Shirley Ellis West and Barbara Sanders). This was the first “Hats on for the Q House” event, but she predicted it would be an annual affair, “because this is a lot of fun and people are having a good time.”