Looking Back at Halloween Fun

Story ID:	1077
Written by:	Gail Lee Martin
Organization:	Kansas Authors Club
Story type:	Family Memories
Location:	mostly El Dorado Kansas USA
Year:	1993
Person:	my family

Looking Back at Halloween Fun

I recently went to the local Wal-Mart store to get some groceries and was confronted with all kinds of ghosts, spooks, black cats and goblins; pretty, ugly and unique Halloween masks and a multitude of noise makers. My mind took an instant spiral back to our Halloweens through the years.

The local community in northwestern Greenwood County, Kansas where I lived with my parents, Clarence and Ruth McGhee and my older sister, Melba, in the early thirties was made up of people who worked in, around and for the oil companies, in search of the flowing ‘Black Gold’. The two major school districts, Nolar and Teter, were the center of the community’s entertainment. First one elementary school, then the other, would have some sort of amusement. Everyone would attend, no matter which district they live in even if they didn’t have children attending school. They had box suppers, programs for holidays and put on plays. My acrobatic team preformed on the stage one time but that is another story.

The first year I remember was when someone decided to have a masquerade for Halloween to be held at the Teterville school up on the big hill. I was happy with the clown costumes Mother made for my sister and I. They were so cute and showed my mother’s imagination and sewing skills. I never heard anyone mention that Mother and Daddy were going to wear costumes. In my six-year-old mind I probably thought it was just kid stuff. So when I first saw them dressed as Gypsies, I didn’t know them. I was one scared little girl and clung to my older sister, Melba, the only familiar object in sight.

Other Halloweens I remember were fun parties at home. For many years we lived in oil field housing development called a camp, which the Phillips Petroleum Company furnished for their employees. Mother would decorate our front room with pictures of black cats and witches cut out of black paper and invited all the neighborhood children. We played many games and had refreshments of hot cider and cookies. I remember one activity that was a wild, wet, and fun for most everyone. That was bobbing for apples. I wasn’t very good at this game but some of the boys with big mouths were excellent.

After Clyde and I were married we lived mostly in the country. Home and school parties still prevailed. “Trick or Treat” hadn’t even been thought of yet. Imagination played a big part in ‘dressing up’ for Halloween, as masquerading was referred to. Sometimes a character from a favorite book would be the inspiration or just a fancy piece of jewelry would lead a small child to be a princess of maybe a South Seas islander.

Planning costumes at our house always started with a rummage through an old barrel filled with an odd collection of clothes. In this were out-of-style dresses, suits, old jewelry, even feathers, and pieces of fur and leather. Grandpa’s old long johns and Grandma’s flannel nightgown found a home in there too. Some favorite costumes were kept for years, appealing to the next generation of children.

In later years ghosts became popular, sheet and pillow cases in the linen closet became endangered. For some reason witches were never popular in our family. Probably the difficulty in fashioning the tall hat had something to do with that. Remember the waxy big lips? Our children became intrigued with them in 1959. Such a simple thing that changed your looks and made everyone laugh.

Our son, Owen loved to play ’cowboys and Indians in the 50s, and his favorite outfit was a leather vest and fringed chaps with a ten-gallon hat--well perhaps a five gallon would be a better description. It did have a leather neck strap so it didn’t blow away in the strong Kansas winds. Owen wore this outfit long after Halloween was forgotten. It was the one he was wearing when he was riding a saddle strapped to a high board fence and the saddle slipped and threw him in the dust breaking his arm when he was six years old.

Thirty five years later Owen appeared on the streets of El Dorado looking like a sheik dressed warmly for a cold Halloween night.

Our daughter, Cindy, carried her love of masquerading over into her adult life as a paying hobby of a puppeteer. Dressed as ‘Whiskers the Cat,’ she performed for children’s parties for a few years in the 1980s. My sister’s cat, Whiskers, probably was Cindy’s role model, since he always acted like a real live Halloween cat.

In 1957 our family moved south of Arkansas City and our children attended a country school called IXL Elementary School. That year the city celebrated the 25th year of the Arkalalah Festival. This fun time is always held on Halloween, and IXL decorated a float that depicted a large greeting card with four students in fancy dress to represent the school. Our oldest daughter, Susan, a fourth grader, was chosen to be one of the four. The girls were dressed alike in pastel yellow satin and net--a memory to treasure, even in an old black and white photo.

A kaleidoscope of colorful costumes of my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren show that at least time hasn’t changed our family’s imaginations. I see pictures of an Indian, clowns, a princess and just plain old spooks. Pictures certainly are worth a thousand words.


(This was published October 1993 in Kanhistique magazine. I was paid more for the pictures printed than for my text).