They’re your grandmothers who light up your lives with dry kisses and stories of how it used to be.

They’re the teachers who stayed with you until you learned algebra.

They’re the women on the street who look like they will never become old. They’re the women with purple sweaters and, more notably, red hats.

The Red Hat Society is made for women over the age of 50 — women who embrace their age and the lasting friendships they’ve had with other women.

Today, they’ve gotten together for a Friday lunch at Audubon’s in The Hotel at Gateway Center, U.S. Highway 30 and Elwood Drive. There are 17 Red Hats at the table, and most of the women are decked out in purple, lavender and lilac. The group has 25 red hats and two pink hats, meaning the women are younger than 50. Laughter fills the room as they talk to one another about their families, their homes and their memories.

Florence Bunker, 76, says this is what the Red Hat Society is about: staying young but also accepting that with age comes grace.

“Age is a state of mind,” she says.

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were,” Jean Prestemon, 67, quips after Bunker’s statement.

The red and yellow daisies scattered on the tables complement the bright red hats, which range from large, floppy wide-brimmed hats to fitted felt hats to cowboy hats with gold accents. The hats are from eBay, Wal-Mart and passed down in the family. The hats are as much a story as the women are.

“My mother is 86 years old, and she wore this hat in 1960,” says Rochelle Ginder, 58. She points to her woven hat, perfectly perched atop her head. “When she found out I was in the Red Hat Society, she mailed it to me.”

Marie Schropp — the group’s 58-year-old leader, known as a queen mother — says she believes the friendships are an important aspect of the Red Hat Society.

Ingrid Brady, 75, agrees.

“The companionship [is most important], and, of course, going out to lunch,” Brady says.

The lunch is full of conversations like these. It is lunch with an old friend who knows you well, and these friends have been together for years, teaching together and raising their children together. The whole of the Red Bud Chapter (Bud as in buddy, not rose bud) of the Red Hat Society taught or currently teaches in the Ames School District. They raise their hands as schools are called out: Meeker, Sawyer, Fellows — every single school is represented here.

Those who are retired say it’s different in the real world. Teaching is full of rules and to-do lists; it’s much more restrictive, Brady says.

“Now there’s a whole new world out there,” she says. “That’s wonderful.”

Even so, the women quickly change the topic to how much they miss teaching. In their eyes, memories float by as sly smiles at forgotten events cross their faces.

“I still do some substituting,” Brady says. “I love to go back and see the kids.”

“A lot of your good friends are teachers,” Bunker says. “You go back and you see all your friends.”

“The children were my friends,” Prestemon says.

The women take their hats to various tea rooms in the area. Their monthly meetings have taken them to Thymes Remembered Tea Room, 1020 Otley Ave. in Perry; Cottage on Broad, 410 Broad St. in Story City; Ivy’s Tea room at the Shoppes on Grand, 517 Grand Ave., and other places. They plan to go to the Terrace Hill tea room at Governor Tom Vilsack’s mansion in Des Moines within the next year.

As they start to get their lunches, Ames School District Superintendent W. Ray Richardson stops by the table.

“If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get a red hat,” he says.