OH, but How to be Perceived on All hallows eve
Dressing up could be all about who you wanted to be or how you wanted to be perceived. Back in Victorian times, the holiday was just another excuse for young people to have a party — to dress up for an evening of dining and dancing on the chance of finding love. Yes, costumes were a must, even in the 19th century. But rather than dressing up like a movie character or your favorite Marvel or Star Wars idol, popular choices were more simple — like bats, cats, devils, scarecrows and clowns and the ever present ghouls and ghosts, of course — as, well as nursery rhyme characters like Little Bo Peep.
Witches Abound! And Ghosts are Seen! On All Hallows Eve.
Learn Your Fate!
Sounds a bit foreboding, don’t cha think?
But that’s the way it was back in Victorian times. They were either trying to foresee the future, scare the bejeezus out of you or play horrible pranks.
That last one was represented quite scarily, I thought, in the musical, “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Oh, yeah, you thought it was all frills and frivolity, didn’t you?
Well, no, it wasn’t. Just take another look at the Halloween night scene. Little Tootie, deciding to be the most “horrible-est” ghoul on the block, marches up to the scariest house and throws flour on the old man who lives there, to “kill” him. (That was actually a thing back then, I guess.) The rumor was he drank whiskey and burned cats in his furnace at midnight. EEEKS!
She’d hatched the plan around a bonfire which the kids made by setting fire to neighborhood plunder. The whole scene is really “horrible” on so many levels, especially for a musical, and I didn’t even realize this until I was costuming the show.
What can I say? I was too caught up singing, “clang, clang, clang went the trolley.”
Postmarked October 31, 1913
Answer Soon!
I picked up this postcard years ago at an antique shop in my hometown of Fort Dodge, Iowa, simply for the Halloween graphic on the front. Now, after all these years, I’m noticing what was written on the back. It reads to me as if a “Cathryn” is trying to make a date with “Master Harold Hall.” Now, I want to know more about Harold Hall. AND, please help me decipher what it actually says. I can’t quite make out the words. You can leave your ideas in the comments.
All I’ve Discovered So Far: An obituary for an Emerson Harold Hall, 85, of Winston, Oregon, who was born August 10, 1935 in Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Harold Hall and Alice (Simonson) Hall. It’s a start.