18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Friday, October 31, 1913: At last this old house sees a party. It was fun to see the guests arrive. They were gowned in many crazy ways. One fellow wore a skirt with hoops and looked too silly for anything. We also had a clown, a ghost, and a witch. The rest were dressed in any old way. As for the false faces, they were about as ugly as could be. There were twenty-one in all and made quite a merry company.

As it was Halloween, one of the guests caught it. Someone unhitched his buggy and carted it away, but it was found at last.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Boo! What a fun party!

Here’s the description of a Halloween party in the October, 1913 issue of McCall’s Magazine:

The house is dark as the guests arrive. A black-robed figure silently opens the door, and mysteriously points them up the staircase, illuminated by a single Jack-o’-Lantern, to a dark room above, where they may remove their wraps. A mysterious something, swathed in a sheet, assists them. . .

As they leave the room voices have dropped to whispers and timid ones stay close together. They follow a series of pointing hands, cut out of black paper, which are indicated by the yellow splotches of candles along the dark hall.

Finally, they come to a large room, dark save for one orange light, where an icy hand takes theirs and leads them to seats. The hand is a glove filled with ice, which the hostess extends. Before the silence becomes oppressive; light appears at the far end of the room behind a sheet. Then begins a shadow pantomime. The real figures are between the light and the sheet, so that the audience sees only their shadows thrown upon the latter.

The pantomime may be anything you choose: not more than four people should be in it, and they will have no end of fun, the week beforehand, working out any scheme they devise.

Some rehearsing will be necessary to regulate the lights, as their distance from the curtain determines whether the shadows will  be large or small. The last picture must show witches with capes and high-pointed caps, singing weird incantations over a caldron. They are still there when the sheet is drawn aside and the guests rush forward, to recognize in one of them their hostess. As the lights are raised, the tension breaks and the merriment runs high.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

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18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Thursday, October 30, 1913: Everything is almost ready for the party and I am anticipating the fun we will have.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I’m almost as excited as Grandma about the Halloween party she and her sister Ruth were planning.

Were there still a few final touches that needed to be completed? . . . like making place cards?

A hundred years ago, place cards were often made to ensure that just the right people sat next to each other.  The October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal included several sample place cards.

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18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Monday, October 27, 1913:  At last and for the first time Ruth is going to pay back some of the entertaining she owes. She is going to give a Halloween Masquerade party. I suggested it over a month ago. I almost gave the thing up last week, but now the invitations are out and I’m fixing things up to beat the kill.

“Invitations written on post cards decorated with button-face freaks Iike those shown will be unique.”

Ladies Home Journal (October, 1913)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

What fun! Grandma and her sister Ruth were going to have a Halloween party.

The October, 1913 issue of both Ladies Home Journal and McCall’s Magazine included directions for Halloween parties.  As Grandma and Ruth prepare for their party over the next few days, I’ll share what the magazines said.

Today, I’m sharing the instructions for making invitations. The direction in Ladies Home Journal are above. Here are the directions in McCalls:

Buy a ten-cent package of black-witch silhouettes, or cut them out yourself, and paste it in the lower corner of the invitation.  Across the top write the following:

Attend, attend, attend:

Lend an ear!

The witches are back,

They’re all come here!

They buried them deep,

But they won’t be still

On All Saints’ Eve,

When the winds blow chill.

They’ll meet you here.

At the hour of eight

Come, see queer things

And learn your fate.

On the reverse side of the card the address is written.

Incidentally, the poem from which the above verses are parodies is entitled “The Broomstick Train” by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

McCall’s Magazine (October, 1913)

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