High time for high tea

SUN CITY – Women of Trinity Luther­an Church’s congregation took a different approach to the common phrase “tea for two” on Saturday, Sept. 7 by serving tea for about 25.

In the style of an early 20th century tea party, members gathered at Colleen Wilkins’ house in N.11 – dressed in garb from the time period – to meet, mingle, and drink tea.

“We decided we needed a get togeth­er because we had a lot of new mem­bers moving into Sun City and also into Huntley. We wanted something that they would be interested in coming to but also something that we could have fun at and sort of introduce ourselves to them,” Reta Stohs, a member of the congregation and on one of the tea party’s committees, said.

LWML’s Darlyne Watts-Jurgens speaks at tea party (Chris La Pelusa/Sun Day Photo)

Stohs added the group used “Downton Abbey” as an inspiration for the tea party.

“The TV program is so popular, not so much among the elderly, but also women, that we figured it would be so much fun to do something similar,” she said.

“Unfortunately, no one donned a Brit­ish accent,” she said. “I’m not sure if they were afraid to do it or just couldn’t do it, but we didn’t really require it. I was surprised so many women came wear­ing hats from around that time period. I didn’t think a lot of people would dress up.”

The dressing up was an added feature, and Stohs mentioned most of the dress­es were from the ‘60s or ‘70s. She said, though, that one woman wore her moth­er’s wedding dress and a couple actually had pieces from the time period.

“I was surprised, at our age, that any­one could get into a dress that small. But they did. We picked up where we could,” Stohs said, adding long white gloves completed the ensemble.

Before the tea party officially began, Darlyne Watts-Jurgens, northern Illi­nois district representative for Lutheran Women’s Mission League, gave a speech about the importance of building friend­ships through the church through events like the tea party. And yes, she even donned a hat.

The event was so successful, Stohs said group members are already looking for­ward to doing it again. But it might be some time before the next party is held.

Women of the Trinity Lutheran Church gathered on Sept. 7 for a tea ceremony in traditional English style. (Chris La Pelusa/Sun Day Photo)

“We’re still kind of recuperating from the last party. But we’ve kept records of how we planned and what we did, so it’ll be easy to pick it up whenever we get the ball rolling again,” she said. “We’ll get together and talk about how we thought it went and what we can improve on.”

If and when another tea party is held, Stohs said they’ll still shoot for the 25-30 number.

“Since we host this at a member’s house, we don’t want it to get too big. We had a good turnout at the first one and everyone had a really great time – and that was the main thing. To talk about what we have in common and our life here in Sun City, and I think it went really well,” she said.

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