HALLOWEEN COSTUME

FIRST HALLOWEEN COSTUME
R. D. Ice

My first Halloween costume? That would have been some years ago. Halloween was different then. It was more a time of doing devilment than a celebration for kids. The old timers told of boys putting a cow in the school principal's office. Imagine forcing a cow up the stairs and into the office in the dead of night.

In 1935 we moved to the Farm on Refugee Road about nine miles from Columbus, Ohio. This was the fourth house and second State since my birth in Whitehouse, Kentucky, in 1929. This was a farming community. Granddad was a medical doctor who planned to retire on this Farm and recreate his childhood among the West Virginia hills. Ohio was flat! This made for an interesting story, but I'll tell that later.

I was very eager to begin the first grade! We drove around the schoolhouse to look it over. It was an impressive two story brick building, with a "T" shaped building that had no windows, at the south end. This was the gymnasium/auditorium.

My teacher was Miss Naomi Rawn. She taught both the first & second grades in the same room. I was so excited! All the children were about my age! I was already used to being around people from my past experience, being in church and living for a while in a college town. I really enjoyed talking with all of my fellow students and hearing about their farms. I think it was two weeks later that we had Parents Day. All the parents came to sit in our class to see how things were done. We enjoyed having them there. It was an exciting time!

"Grandmother, would you make me a Halloween costume?"

"A Halloween costume, Roger?"

"Miss Rawn is having a party for the first and second grades. She had us cut out pumpkins from orange paper. She put them up in the windows. She got some cornstalks and some stalks of wheat and put them in the corner near the window. We are to have pumpkin cookies and lemonade and milk too. We will all have fun! Make me a costume, will you?"

"Certainly Roger. I'll find something to make it out of."

Now, we weren't poor. We just didn't have money. We had lots of milk and lots of eggs and all the things we grew in the garden. Grandmother was always canning food and putting the jars in the cellar (we didn't call it a basement like city folks did). She canned tomatoes in with the corn and with other things to keep them from spoiling. It sure tasted good! She even canned sausage, frying it first and pouring hot grease into the jars to seal them so the meat wouldn't spoil.

But we didn't buy things from the store if we could help it. That took money. Grandmother always said: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." That was her motto. But Grandmother was a seamstress. She made clothes for people in her younger days. I knew she would find an old shirt or a curtain or something like that and do wonders with it.

"Roger, look at this brown and yellow plaid shirt. I could make a clown costume. How would that be?"

"A clownnnn? I don't know. That just doesn't seem right. Edna Zarbaugh and Jessie Strawser say they are coming as witches. I don't want to be a clown."

"Well, Roger, I'll look up in the attic. Maybe I can find something. There is an old black hat up there. I could do something with the hat. I'll go up and look."

I followed Grandmother upstairs into the right hand bedroom. She went into the closet, reached up to lift the panel above her head which opened into the attic. Then she climbed up into the attic. I climbed up too (and she didn't tell me to go back). There was no floor in the attic. Bare rafters stuck out. But I could see some boards which she walked on to get to the things. There were all sorts of old clothes, feathers from a feather tick (sort of a mattress stuffed with chicken feathers), old newspapers and magazines, and boxes. Lots of boxes.

"Roger, here's that black hat. I can put it over a coffee can and stretch it with a hot iron and make you a stovepipe hat. That will be something that will look good. And over here are some dark brown curtains."

"Grandmother, the hat ought to be fine. The stovepipe hat will be a lot of fun. The other kids will like it. But what will the curtains look like? What will you make with them?"

We had no electricity until around 1941 or 1942, even though we lived only nine miles from Columbus, the big city. Grandmother put a metal plate over the burner of the kerosene kitchen stove and put the iron on it. The heat from the fire heated the iron, and the plate kept the iron from getting dirty from the fire itself.

"Grandmother, that iron is surely hot! How will you pick it up?"

"I'll use this handle," she said. She picked up the handle and snapped it into the iron. She put the hat over the coffee can, then molded it and pressed it with the iron.

"There, Roger, you have a stovepipe hat."

"Grandmother, it is just beautiful! All the other kids will want one like it! Thank you for making it!"

"Now I'll get the curtain and we'll see what I can make out of it. What would you think of a cape?"

"A cape? Like in that picture. The man with the stovepipe hat and a cape around his shoulders."

"That's right. I'll cut a hole here in the middle for your head to go through. Just a minute. I'll cut it and then we'll see how it looks."

"Grandmother, I can see myself in the mirror. The cape looks just fine! All the kids will like this and wish they had one too! You're the best Grandmother there is!"

"I'll make you a mask from this piece I cut out."

I was six years old. This was my first Halloween party. Some of the parents were there too. We children had the best time! We had good fun and lots of cookies and things and we were very happy! We were all proud of our costumes, especially me.