For Sierrah: Around the time of, and before, Vatican II, women in the United States generally wore hats as part of their daily outfit when outside. The etiquette rules of thumb said that hats could be worn inside at social affairs before the dinner hour. Thus, if you were attending a luncheon, or lunch out with your girlfriends, you generally wore a hat in keeping with the season (some sort of straw or fabric for “summer”–after Memorial Day and before Labor Day, and some sort of felt, wool, or fur for “winter”—the rest of the year,) and that coordinated with your outfit. However, if you went to a dinner dance, or an evening event (such as the opera, a charity ball, or something of the sort,) you went bareheaded.
None of this was restricted to Catholic women. It was just the fashion at the time.
Since Mass is usually in the daytime, women who wore hats did so according to the above rules, and I doubt most of them thought it was a religious statement. You usually saw little round chapel veils after hatlessness became fashionable, and usually mantillas were worn by older ladies who were immigrants. At the time, “wash and wear” hair wasn’t common, most women either got their hair done on a weekly basis or did it at home, requiring setting it and spending time under a hair dryer (not blow-drying it like nowadays.) The chapel veils stuck out at odd angles on the bouffant hairstyles of the day and looked silly. Most of the ladies in my mom’s generation were ecstatic to see them go the way of the dodo bird. Scarves were still fairly ubiquitous, but were primarily worn to avoid messing your hair.
The funny thing is, when I lived in New York, my apartment was near an AME church. All of those ladies wore hats to church, every Sunday, and on Wednesday nights when they had their scripture study hours. Big elaborate hats, the kind you’d see at the Kentucky Derby. They must have paid a small fortune for them.
With fall coming in, I went to a department store and picked up a couple of hats–a camel fedora with a silk hatband, and a charcoal cloche with a feather rosette. Nothing big or ostentatious, and they both coordinate with my raincoat and my winter coat. They’ll keep me warm (a real consideration in upstate NY,) they should work fine for church, and I feel a lot more comfortable wearing them than wearing an actual veil or mantilla.
it’s so nice of that lady to give you a mantilla! That’s how I got mine as well 
I’m glad to hear that your experience veiling went well.
