Halloween – Part 4. Halloween on the Ridge 100 years ago. A few years ago, the RHS newsletter editor was looking through the old Morgan Park Post newspapers for something interesting to write about for Halloween for the Beverly Area Planning Association Villager, the free community newspaper.
Then she came across this little tidbit of information in the November 6, 1915 Post: “MR. and MRS. THOS. CUMMINGS entertained at a Hallowe’en party last Saturday evening at their home on Homewood Ave.“
These were her great-grandparents. Her great-grandparents had a Halloween party in Morgan Park 100 years ago. What might that have been like?
Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones in the U.S. by the beginning of the 20th century. By 1915, parties were the most common way to celebrate, and usually included decorations, costumes, games, and refreshments.
Prior to 1900, decorations had relied on natural items like corn stalks, symbolic of the harvest. Jack-o-lanterns, now made from native pumpkins, were customary. Then several companies, notably Dennison Manufacturing Company, began making paper products such as heavy cardboard die cuts; paper plates, cups, and napkins; crepe paper streamers, and the like. Decorations became much more sophisticated and commercial. Dennison published “Halloween Bogie” books from 1909 through 1934 that were basically catalogs but also included ideas, illustrations and instructions for decorations and parties.
Food suggestions included a sit-down supper with items like cream of celery soup, brown bread sandwiches and Waldorf salad, to a buffet including a variety of finger sandwiches (cucumber, salmon, jelly), stuffed celery, and orange sherbet. Gingerbread was popular in any form – cookies, cake with marshmallow frosting.
In addition to some of the old-fashioned games that were stand-bys, like bobbing for apples, fortune telling and other divination games were popular. Variations of a “mirror test” were mentioned often in articles of the day. One version called for a girl to sit before a mirror at midnight on Halloween, combing her hair and eating an apple, in order to see the face of her true love reflected in the glass.