Halloween parties are the best – and they have been lots of fun for many years ago. Like now, a hundred years ago, people made jack-o-lanterns and decorated their home for Halloween. Back then, the decorations were often homemade rather than the typical purchased decorations used today.
The October, 1925 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine provided party suggestions -and included an image of a centerpiece with a Gingerbread Witch House surrounded by black cats, small jack-o-lanterns, and other spooky figures.
In the early 1900’s, the “trick” part of “trick or treat” was still in play, and people often played tricks on others – and sometimes even did pranks, including “soaping windows” by taking a bar of soap and rubbing it on windows.
More than 14 years ago, I started this blog as a place to post my grandmother’s diary entries exactly one hundred years to the day after she wrote them. She was a teen-ager living on a farm in central Pennsylvania when she wrote the entries. Her diary ended after four years, and I then converted this blog to its current food blog format. Here is what Grandma wrote in her diary about a Halloween party:
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.
Here are a few posts I’ve done over the years about Halloween foods, decorations, and crafts:
Old-Fashioned Witches’ Layer Cake
Hundred-Year-Old Shrunken Apple Head Witch Craft
Hundred-Year-Old Halloween Bogeyman Craft
Hundred-Year-Old Halloween Party Invitations
Ah, yes. Soaping windows. Ivory soap was the best; it was softer, and applied more easily for the amateurs. Sometimes, more experienced sorts would make a thick sludge of Lux laundry detergent flakes and water, and get really creative!
🙂 Sounds like you have first-hand knowledge.
Who, me? LOL!
It’s sad to see so much plastic ‘home decor’ costume accessories, and massive plastic lawn ornaments sold ad nauseam in the literal months before Halloween; buy more! Then it will all go in the landfills so you can buy more next year.
I feel exactly the same way. In my opinion, it’s really sad, how many people buy new Halloween decorations each year. I can remember tracing Halloween patterns to make window decorations, and then using the traced figures to make decorations out of construction paper. We’d then save the decorations to use the next year. They’d be a bit tattered the second year, but still looked just fine when taped on a window. Ah, the good old days. . . 🙂
Yes, and our Halloween costumes were mostly homemade, maybe the odd mask, which was always saved to the costume box! Many’s the time we were hobos or ghosts!
Exactly — It was always so much fun to dig out the box filled with old costumes and masks each October.
This is so much fun! I wish we could go back to some of these traditions… Soapy windows sounds downright beneficial, because then you have a head-start on cleaning them after the holiday.
Good point – I never thought about how soaping windows could be a head-start on cleaning them after the holiday.
How old was she when she wrote these?
My grandmother was 18 when she wrote the diary entry that I included in this post. She started her diary when she was 15, and quit writing in her diary when she was 19.
That was a bit of a mean trick. People soaped windows and threw field corn kernels at windows where I grew up in PA. People in TX didn’t seem to know about soaping windows, and there was not much corn around.
Similarly to you, I remember the town kids soaping windows and doing other pranks that didn’t seem very nice – but they had a lot of fun. Since I lived out on a farm, I just heard the stories the next day at school.
Here in Australia, Halloween, and buying paraphernalia associated, has become more and more popular over the past decade. Before then a few kiddies would wander the streets in search of treats – tricks were not really welcome – it was sugar they wanted. Now the shops are overflowing with merchandise to tempt, and I recently bought a number of ghostly decorations to adorn the table. Yes, I too am becoming hooked…
It’s interesting how Halloween us becoming more popular in Australia. It’s a lot of fun. I don’t think that people have done pranks on Halloween in the U.S. for many years. Pranks were considered fun in the past, but perspectives have changed in more recent times.
I’m understanding the ‘fun’ aspect. Even in the stores people (customers) are enjoying the spirit of Halloween as we smile at the decorations; many of which are truly silly and sweet.
Similarly to you, I enjoy seeing all the fun Halloween decorations in the stores, though I never buy them (I don’t need any more knick-nacks and trinkets cluttering up my house).
I’m with you on that score. I’m even slowly reducing the knickknacks, giving some to charity!
I enjoyed you including your grandmother’s post about the party. That was sweet, and fun to see her comments from 1913!
I had fun preparing this post. I enjoyed revisiting posts that I did during “the diary years” of this blog.
It is wonderful, isn’t it?
Thank you very much for sharing the diary post from your grandmother regarding a Halloween party when she was 14yrs. old. My Father was born in 1916, so the time frame is somewhat close, it reminds me of conversations he and I have had; my Father passed in 2016, five months shy of 100yrs. old. Thank you again for all you do to share this information.
Deb
(I am sorry if this is a duplicate post, but I had difficulty logging in and then I believe my post was lost.)
It sounds like you had some wonderful conversations with your father It’s nice to hear that this post brought back some warm memories. I know that I really enjoyed posting my grandmother’s diary entries awhile back. I learned so much about her, her personality, and her sense of humor.
This wasn’t a duplicate post. Apparently it didn’t go through the first time. I’m glad you persevered and tried again.
A party of 21 was a large gathering back in those days. I love her descriptions of the folks that attended!
Twenty-one is a lot even today. It would have filled the farmhouse where Grandma lived when she was a teen. The farm was located about a mile outside the small village of McEwensville PA. I’m guessing that some of the party guests would have walked out from town or from nearby farms in their costumes – though some came in buggies since someone unhitched the buggy of one guest and hid it. I can picture a group of teens chatting and having fun as they traverse country roads on a (hopefully) moonlit night to get to and from the party.
What a precious entry from your grandmother’s diary, Sheryl. I loved the Halloween party description and the trick. Thank you so much.
It’s wonderful to hear that you enjoyed reading the entry from my grandmother’s diary. I am very fortunate to have it, and learned so much about my grandmother and her times from it.