Have a very Baba Yaga Halloween

Happy Halloween! This old postcard proved to be a minor mystery for me to crack, but I channeled the smarts of Velma Dinkley, Jupiter Jones and Encyclopedia Brown to come up with some answers. Read books and take the occasional short break for corny cartoons, kids! Then go help your parents with their chores.

Anyway, this postcard features a sculpture of two children who are in peril and hoping to avoid capture by Baba Yaga, a witch of Slavic folklore fame who is sometimes nasty and sometimes nice. This appears to be the nasty version.

Lady Yaga — Ha! Get it? I just made that up! — is typically envisioned as living in a forest hut that stands on sentient chicken legs.¹ But, alas, no chicken legs are shown here.

A initial Google reverse image search got me the name "Innocentiy Zhukov" and similar vintage postcards with amazing Zhukov sculptures. You can see a bunch of them — they're really fabulous — at HipPostcard.com. But I couldn't find any historical or biographical information about "Innocentiy Zhukov."

Stumped, I finally typed in the Russian name printed at the bottom of the postcard: ИННОКЕНТIЙ ЖУКОВБ.

Doing a Google search on that hit the jackpot.

The sculptor of the Baba Yaga scene pictured on this vintage postcard was Innokenty Nikolaevich Zhukov, who lived from 1875 to 1948. (Innokentiy is another English-alphabet variant of his first name.) He was a famous sculptor, educator and writer, and he was a prominent figure in the scouting movement in Russia. He is described as an innovator, a humanist and a romanticist — an artist inclined to "talented fantasies."

Here is some additional biographical information about Zhukov:

• He was born in October 1875 in the village of Gornyi Zerentuy in Transbaikal, Russia. His father was a worker in a gold mine. One site states that "as a child, wandering through the forest, he enthusiastically searched for unusual roots and branches of trees and processed them with a knife, turning them into figures of animals, birds and people." As his education abroad continued in his teens, he focused on drawing, clay-modeling and wood-carving of these same subjects.
• He worked as an educator and, specifically, a geography teacher for about three decades. He taught Esperanto alongside Russian, which was uncommon for his time and place, and had books published with dual text in Esperanto and Russian.
• Zhukov's 1924 book Voyage of the Red Star Pioneer Troop to Wonderland is described as follows in 1995's Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays, and Folklore, 1917-1953:
  

  "Political utopia and science fiction — a widely used combination in the 1920s — joing up in this children's tale of eight boys who land in a beautiful, bright Communist future of Esperanto, glass cities, and aeroball in the distant year 1957."

• Clay model remained his favorite pastime, and he was mostly self-taught in that discipline. He became a popular artist, with gallery exhibitions in St. Petersburg and posters depicting his sculptures. He created more than a thousand sculptures of clay, gypsum and cement; what remains is scattered over private collections, museums and parks. One translated site described his artwork as reflecting "his passionate love for people, irreconcilable hatred for all oppression, for philistine vulgarity, for the abominable vices that are generated by capitalist society."

Chicken-leg themed footnote
1. I am only the second person to use the phrase "sentient chicken legs" on the Internet. Baby Dyke Diaries beat me to it by two years. Two years ago, a funny and sometimes profane Halloween-themed post by author Veronika suggested a Baba Yaga trick-or-treating costume:

"Baba Yaga is a bonifide badass who lives off the grid, has a private jet shaped like a mortar, practices herbalism and witchcraft — all the while wining, dining, and sauning beautiful backpacking strangers. ... Best thing, Baba Yaga’s costume is a totally low-key deal, which will allow you to show off your cool nonchalance.

"You will need:

• some rags
• some hairspray
• a human-sized mortar

"Really, just wear whatever makes you feel fierce and you are basically a Baba Yaga.

"As a bonus point, decorate your house with sentient chicken legs and use illuminated human skulls to light the way to the party."

Veronika is kind of awesome.

Book cover: "The Dunwich Horror" (from Bart House Books)

Here's the worn and awesome cover of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror, published by Bartholomew House (Bart House Books) in 1945. The 186-page book contains three of Lovecraft's tales: "The Dunwich Horror," "The Shadow Out of Time," and "The Thing on the Doorstep."

This post bookends nicely with The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth, another Bart House title, which I wrote about in February 2016.

The back cover of The Dunwich Horror features an advertisement for Murder Meets Mephisto by Queena Mario. Bart House was only in business from 1944 to 1947, but it certainly knew how to create compelling book covers.

The Bart House advertising copy on the inside front cover states the following:

An interesting, entertaining book is a bargain at any price. The problem faced by booklovers is that unusual books are hard to find at the right price.

The editors of the BART HOUSE books and [sic] booklovers. They seek and select the unusual, the fascinating off-trail stories that attract continuous interest.

Under the BART HOUSE imprint there appear fascinating novels and mysteries so appealingly individualized that one cannot tire of them. Mysteries, unique Detective Stories; haunting tales of the Supernatural; — escape from the everyday world through science-fiction and great romantic adventure reading.

Variety is essential to reading pleasure. You always find it under the distintive imprint of Bartholomew House Books. For your great reading satisfaction — always ask for the popular BART HOUSE Books.

Vintage postcard: A Jolly Hallowe'en; plus, links to other spooky cards

As Noč čarovnic ("Halloween" in Slovenian) creeps closer, here's a slightly sad and stained old Hallowe'en postcard that was never used. Maybe I should send it through the postal system for the very first time, more than a century after its creation.

It features a witch, a black cat, some pumpkin-head men and some little devils/goblins/aliens. (The one in the haystack seems to have antennae, so I'm really not sure what's up with these guys.)

The back contains only a MADE IN U.S.A. designation and a small logo with an S and a B intertwined.

That logo stands for Samson Brothers (in existence from 1909 to 1919), and there were at least two other similar postcards in this witchy series, which is circa 1912. You can see another card from this series at rubylane.com.

If you love looking at vintage Halloween postcards, there have been a bunch on Papergreat over the years. Here are some links that should keep you busy until the trick-or-treaters start knocking on the door.

• 
  "Make a ring of pumpkin seeds..."
• Witch declares that she's No. 1
• The Witch's Dance
• Girl with head inside pumpkin
• Witch hugging black cat and sitting atop huge pumpkin
• Pumpkin thief chased by a "ghost"
• The Witch (Julius Bien)
• Run, little boys, run! Run from the Pumpkin Man!
• Running away from the ghosts
• Kind witch and little pumpkinheads
• Little boy beings scared by trees with faces
• Two cute kids sitting atop a smiling pumpkin

1975 children's toys book cover that would have to be rethought today

Times and popular culture change, so this 1970s book cover is now a bit on the creepy side. OK, maybe a lot on the creepy side.

These are tough times, indeed, for ginger clowns.

This softcover book is Things to Make for Children, and it was a Sunset Book, published by Lane Books of Menlo Park, California. The second edition was copyrighted in 1973, and this is the January 1975 fourth printing.

The original cover of the 1961 first edition, pictured at right, is perhaps one they should have stuck with. But nobody could have known what havoc Stephen King would wreak upon the nation's psyche.

Cover aside, the book is filled with imaginative ideas for toys and crafts for the little ones.

Some of the projects are a little on the elaborate side, such a wooden catapult, a wobble toy, a triangular abacus, a four-story dollhouse (!!), a hillside dollhouse (!!!), a revolving dollhouse (!!!!) and an all-wood backyard play structure with an eight-foot central tower that would put most children's playgrounds to shame (and there's a seven-foot rocking giraffe to accompany it).

But then there are simpler items — rag dolls, sock monkeys, hand puppets, paper-bag costumes, kites and piñatas. So the book has a nice mix of items and would be certain to spur additional ideas.

But, alas, that's all if you can get past the clown on the cover...

Vincent Price is the Nexus of All Things

When I first jotted down an idea months ago, this was going to be a post about the 1980s Time Life book series The Enchanted World, with an aside about Vincent Price, one of the celebrities used to market those books on late-night TV.

As the weeks passed, my interest in the (still fascinating) Enchanted World waned slightly, while my interest in writing again about Vincent Price increased.

And increased. And increased. Then, something struck me earlier this week. In the intersecting realms of Popular Culture and My Life ... Vincent Price is, truly, The Nexus of All Things. It's not even close. (Sorry, Tommy Westphall.)

So this has become another post about Vincent Price, following on the heels of this May 2011 post and many other passing mentions here over the years. But I hedged a little on whether to write this morning. It's sunny and pleasant outside. A proper post about Vincent Price should be written on a dark and stormy night, when the wind is howling and trash-can lids are flying off and tumbling down the street. A night when the doors should be locked, because the dead are not still.

So I thought I would hold off. I still have a few days of Halloween season remaining. Then I went on Twitter. And I saw that today, this very day, marks the 24th anniversary of Vincent Price's death, on October 25, 1993.

Hello again, Vincent Price Nexus. You're never far off, are you?

So here we are. Discussing my Nexus. Perhaps yours is different. Maybe you're focused on Bieber or Gaga or the Brontë sisters, but in my world it's Vincent Price who keeps popping up. Over the past weeks, in addition to his association with Time Life books, I have come across:

• Glorious advertisements for the Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture, one of those "toys" that every not-so-cool kid in the late 1970s wanted.
• News that Cooking Price-Wise, one of Price's best-selling cookbooks — yes that's cookbooks, plural, because the man was amazing — is being expanded and republished.
• I was researching a favorite childhood memory, the 1979 TV special Once Upon a Midnight Scary, because I loved the Severn Darden-led adaptation of The House with a Clock in Its Walls. And it was during this research that I rediscovered that, of course, Vincent Price served as the host who introduced the three tales of terror.
• I can't go a day in October without someone tweeting the Kermit-and-Vincent photo into my feed.

He's everywhere!

And that's not all. There are connections that are even more personal in the Nexus. Vincent Price has read stories written by Ruth Manning-Sanders — my Anyone In History Dream Lunch would be Ashar and I sitting down with the two of them. Vincent Price absolutely remains one of Ashar's favorite actors, too, keeping pace alongside Norman Reedus and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Our shared Price film favorites include The Last Man on Earth, House on Haunted Hill, and any of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations Price starred in. Even if all the aforementioned advertisements and cookbooks and hosting gigs didn't exist, we'd have a robust Vincent Price Fan Club in our household, solely based on his films.

And then there's Stranger Things, which brings us right up to this week. We're fans. Ashar and I watched Season 1 twice and are looking forward to Season 2 this week. The trailer for Season 2 makes absolutely masterful use of ... hello, Nexus ... Vincent Price's legendary voice-over from Michael Jackson's "Thriller."



"Darkness falls across the land" ... in that iconic voice ... just sends happy shivers down the spine.

I'll leave you with this: Two years ago, Vincent Price's daughter, Victoria, wrote a beautiful blog post on the anniversary of her father's death titled "YES YES YES YES YES!" You should read the whole thing, but here are two excerpts that I love:

My dad had lots of cute rituals that I loved as a kid: Holding your breath when driving through tunnels, skipping rocks into the waves, tossing a penny into a fountain and making a wish. He had cute little poems or turns of phrases for many things. For example, whenever he saw a pelican, he could not help himself. He intoned: “What a wonderful bird is the pelican. His beak can hold more than his belly can.”

* * *
Now to be sure, there are times where having our N-O is very very important, maybe the most important thing in the world: Creating boundaries, speaking our truths, taking care of ourselves instead of others. We must all learn to have our NO!

But saying YES to life is equally vital. In fact, saying yes to life opens our hearts and our minds expands us and our whole lives into connection with one another, with what and who we love, even with the planet!

So, my way of honoring my dad this Halloween week is very simple. Find one way of saying YES this week!

Spooky book cover: "Witch House"

(Another "Witch" book, following Friday's post.)

• Title: Witch House
• Author: Evangeline Walton (1907-1996)
• Cover artist: Ralph Brillhart¹ (1924-2007)
• Publisher: Monarch Books (#264)
• Cover price: 35 cents
• Year of this edition: 1962
• Original publication date: 1945 (through Arkham House)
• Pages: 159
• Format: Paperback
• Front-cover blurb: "They Were Forced To Live In A House Saturated With Evil"²
• Back-cover excerpt: "The will, conceived in hatred, demanded that Elizabeth Stone and two male cousins occupy Witch House for an allotted time in order to inherit a fortune."
• Back-cover spoiler: The plot includes a giant, black rabbit with some sort of D&D style Blink powers.
• Dedication: "To my Quaker Grandmother a staunch believer in this book and to 'Tuneless Thomas' who was a kind of collaborator"
• First sentence: There was a quiet, informal dignity about Dr. Gaylord Carew's office on West Forty-fifth Street.
• Last sentence: "The boat is waiting to take us to the mainland, Elizabeth."
• Random section from middle: "But I liked chickens. I was horrified at the idea of killing one."
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.45 stars (out of 5.0)
• A Goodreads review excerpt: Luce Cronin writes: "This is a really creepy book; it really gets into your head. The story is one of identity projection and possession and the antagonist in the story draws on known mystical principles from the Tibetan tradition."
• 
  Notes: Evangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, who was born into a Quaker family in Indianapolis. She is pictured here (at right) around age 29. Her inspirations included L. Frank Baum, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, and John Cowper Powys, with whom she had an ongoing correspondence for many years. ... One of Walton's best-known works is a four-novel retelling of the mythological Welsh story of the Mabinogion. You can learn more about that series in this excellent 2012 post by Scott Lazerus on Worlds Without End (a website where you could fall down a deep rabbit hole). ... Witch House has been published in many editions over the years. You can see a full list at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Its first publication was in 1945, as the famed Arkham House's first original full-length novel, and it did not sell well, though it has been mostly well-regarded by critics over the years.

Footnotes
1. Ralph Brillhart artwork was also featured in this January 2017 Papergreat post.
2. Studies over the years have proven that it's healthier to live in a house with Unsaturated Evil. Saturated Evil is bad, and Trans-saturated Evil, especially the industrial-made stuff, is the worst. Also, watch out for Partially Hydrogenated Evil.

1969 Jersey Devil postcard illustrated by Ed Sheetz

Having spent most of my youth in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, I am quite familiar with the legend of the Jersey Devil. He was woven into the fabric of late 1970s and early 1980s paranormal discussions, alongside poltergeists, the boogeyman, The Hook and Bigfoot. On youth campouts, even hundreds of miles from New Jersey in the forests of central Pennsylvania, every noise or bump in the woods might be the Jersey Devil, looking for a snack. Everyone knew someone whose uncle's friend had seen it once.

This 1969 postcard presents a comic caricature of the Jersey Devil, rather than trying to hew to the traditional "eyewitness descriptions" from long ago that portray it as some sort of kangaroo/goat/bat hybrid. The illustration is by Ed Sheetz. According to the 1998 book Phantom of the Pines: More Tales of the Jersey Devil, by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Sheetz was one of the most well-known folk artists to turn the Jersey Devil into a revenue-producing venture:

"Sheetz's sketches of the Jersey Devil, on posters, postcards, and other objects, may have added to the frequent conception of the Jersey Devil as a more friendly and playful creature through their popularity. One of his widely circulated renditions shows the Jersey Devil standing in the Pines. He is a small creature with cat-like hindquarters, a pointed head, small horns, a puckish smile on his face, and wearing a small vest."

As of this writing, a hand-carved wood block by Sheetz of the Jersey Devil is available on Etsy for $189.

To be clear, I never viewed the Jersey Devil and playful or puckish when I was a kid. In the stories that circulated around campfires and on dark nights, you would be extremely lucky to escape with your life if you met up with old J.D.

There are plenty of other places to read more about the history, folklore and alleged sightings of the Jersey Devil. And there's a great episode of Aaron Mahnke's podcast, Lore, that sums up the legend in 23 creepy minutes. Here, for posterity, is a rundown of the text block on this Sheetz postcard, typos and all:

THE LEGEND OF THE JERSEY DEVIL
(Famous New Jersey Folklore Character)

Since the early 1700's, there have been many accounts of the "Jersey" or "Leeds Devil". Descriptions vary from "horsefaced" to "collie faced" - from a large furry creature of a reddish brown "colour", with bat-like wings, cloven hoofs, horns and a forked tail, to an impish, nattily dressed character who delights in scaring people half out of their wits. In days gone by, he has been sighted in the Pine Barrens, Port Republic, New Gretna and many other "nearby" towns. Some say his birthplace was in the Leeds Point area, near Smithville, and that he roamed the swamps along the Mullica River. Most agree that a woman named Leeds (thoughts to be a witch) having twelve children already, and finding herself with child again, cursed it and wished that the offspring be born a devil. She got her wish apparently, and from that day on the Legend of "The Jersey Devil" became a part of New Jersey folklore.

Dust jacket: "Tale of the Witch Doll"

This is one of those situations in which a crumbling dust jacket is, in my opinion, even more interesting (and slightly creepier, perhaps) than a pristine one...

• Title: Tale of the Witch Doll
• Series: Penny Parker Mystery Stories
• Author: Mildred A. Wirt
• Dust jacket illustrator: K.S. Woerner
• Publisher: Cupples and Leon Company, New York
• Year: 1939
• Pages: 210
• Format: Hardcover
• First sentence: "Just one more dive," pleaded Penny, climbing nimbly up the rungs of the bright brass ladder.
• Last sentence: "Oh, you mean that paragraph about the witch doll?" Penny asked airily. "Didn't I warn you it would finally make the front page?"
• Random paragraph from middle: The girl found herself in a gloomy chamber which had been draped with black velvet. The windows were covered with the same heavy material, and even the ceiling was black, decorated with a sprinkling of misshapen silver stars.¹
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.63 stars (out of 5.0)
• One Goodreads review: R.L.'s three-star review from 2013: "An interesting glimpse into life in the U.S. in the late 1930s. Aimed at young readers of that era — it's laughable to think of this book appealing to any of today's teens. The characters are so uncool."
• Notes: Author Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (1905-2002) was a journalist who is best known for writing most of the early Nancy Drew mysteries for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, under the famous pen name Carolyn Keene. Her books included #1 in the Nancy Drew series, The Secret of the Old Clock. According to her obituary, she was "sworn to secrecy" about being the author of those early Nancy Drew books and "did not reveal her true identity until a 1980 court case allowed her to do so. The revelation made her an instant celebrity." ... Tale of the Witch Doll was the first of 17 volumes in the Penny Parker Mystery Stories series, the only series Wirt wrote under her own name. Other spooky titles included The Vanishing Houseboat, The Clock Strikes Thirteen, Ghost Beyond the Gate, and Hoofbeats on the Turnpike. ... "I always thought Penny Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy is," the author stated in a 1993 interview.

Footnote
1. My college roommate, Lee, and I always joked about how we were going to cover our dorm-room ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars. We never did. We also never climbed Mount Nittany in the middle of the night, like we said we were going to.

1970's "The Halloween Hut" by Miriam Fuller

Does anyone remember using these staplebound reading booklets from Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company during their elementary school days in the 1970s or 1980s? This 24-page book was published in 1970 and written by Miriam Fuller. It contains three short stories with one- and two-syllable words: "Little Red Jet," "The Halloween Hut," and "The Magic Tree," which features a pixie named Puck.

The other books from this specific Merrill set, all of which I believe were written by Fuller, include Jan and Cap Can Nap; The Van Man; Rags in the Van; Cats, Cats; Up Pup Up; The Bus is For Us; The Fun Bag; The Little Fix-it Lad; Ground Hog; Tubs; and Cousin Mack.

From the few books that I've seen, one of the really nice elements is that there's a good mixture of protagonists of different races. This was perhaps one of the earliest set of children's books to understand that representation matters. The artwork is also very good, though no illustrator is credited, which is a shame.

Here's an excerpt from "The Halloween Hut":

Tad ran to Dan's pack and got a match. He lit it and said, "Your ghost, Tim, is a wet mop. And the ghost that had you by the neck, Dan, is a ragbag.

Tim looked at Dan said, "So I am a little chicken, but you are a big chicken."

I don't know how long this 1970 book was in use by the Hanover Public School District. But when it was "OFFICALLY DISCONTINUED," it received this big stamp on the inside front cover:

One child is chosen to be "It"

Yeah, the children's game of "Tag, You're It" has taken on a whole new meaning for this generation thanks to It, aka Pennywise, aka Bob Gray. Have we ever before had a situation in which a harmless, two-letter word has taken on such terrifying connotations? Thanks, Stephen King.

(There was an old Far Side cartoon with the caption "It's 'Them,' gentlemen." A man has opened the door and there's a giant ant on the other side. Obviously, that joke will start to lose its relevance, because future generations will not be familiar with the atomic-age, giant-ants horror movie Them! But I digress.)

So, anyway, it's fun — at least in my warped brain — to examine old books about children's games and overlay modern fictional horrors onto them. And so that brings us to the 1923 staplebound booklet Active Games for Schoolroom and Playground by Lincoln P. Goodhue.¹ One of the games listed for first-graders is "Token Tag" (shown at the top of this post), and it has this description:

One child is chosen to be "It," and runs about the room, up and down the aisles, carrying a token (an eraser, book, or some other object). He places his token on any desk he chooses, and is immediately chased by the owner of that desk, who carries the token along and tries to overtake and tag him before he can reach his own seat. If he is caught, the pursuer becomes "It," if not, the game continues until someone succeeds in tagging him.

Deadlights not included. Feel free to use a red balloon as the token, kids!

This dandy 102-page booklet by Mr. Goodhue is packed with other great, nostalgic and sometimes bizarre games. As you can see above, "Poison" is another exciting pastime for the little ones to enjoy. Start teaching them the Game of Thrones methods at an early age!

I could get a bunch of posts out of this book. For now, I'll just leave you with a tantalizing list of some of the other game titles:

• Prince Tiptoe
• Flower Twins
• Where is Your Letter Going?
• Storming the Castle
• Bean Race
• Cross Tag
• Wood Tag
• Squat Tag
• Slap Tag
• Touch Wood and Whistle
• The Farmer is Coming
• Tommy Tiddler's Ground
• The "Red Lion" Game
• Squirrels in Trees
• Forcing the City Gates
• Bear in the Pit
• Advancing Statues
• Chicken Market
• Postman
• "Have You Seen My Sheep?"
• The Apprentice²
• The Mayor of Kokomo
• The King of France
• London Bridge
• Ring Around a Rosy
• The Farmer in the Dell
• Charley Over the Water
• The Muffin Man
• Knave in the Garden
• Baste the Bear
• Pom Pom Pullaway
• Brownies and Fairies
• Prisoner's Base
• Wolf
• Ante Over

What games do you want to hear more about? What games did you play in grade school? Float me your thoughts!

Footnotes
1. This is probably Goodhue. The time period is correct and I can't imagine the name is too common.
2. Nope, nope, nope, nope. That's way worse than Pennywise.

Creepiest eBay listing of the year

Saw this while browsing eBay earlier this year. Didn't bid, but wanted to share.

It seemed appropriate for "Mild Fear 2017" and also as something that I should record for posterity. This was the item description:

ANTIQUE 1860's TINTYPE PHOTO PHOTOGRAPH POST MORTEM PHOTO OF BABY GIRL with blonde curly hair and lacy dress.
Measure 4"x 2.75".
Good antique condition with wear as seen on my photos descriptions.

Obviously, the photograph is not of a baby girl. It's clearly a doll. But it's still creepy as hell. You should probably go and Google something cute like "fluffy baby bunnies" before you go to bed.

Witches, pickles and good fun at an 1893 party in Pittsburg, Kansas

Here's an amusing article I came across while doing some research on ... well, actually, my "research" involves so many tangential rabbit holes and browser tabs that I'm not sure quite how I came across this.

It was in the pages of the March 23, 1893, edition of The Pittsburg Headlight, a predecessor of The Morning Sun in the eastern Kansas city of Pittsburg. It details a spooky and supernatural-themed party that was hosted by "But Byrt" and Bella Maxwell 124 years ago. I'm fairly sure that "But" is a typo; there are a few stray references to a Bud Byrt in area history.

As for Bella, I'll have a little more about her after the article...

Pardonnez-Moi.But Byrt and Bella Maxwell well deserve the name of being first in novel party entertaining.

They gave an example of it last evening at their "Witch Party," participated in by the Misses Larimer, of Weir City; Files, Ford, Beck, Lane, Williams, Baum, Donnelly, Carroll, Lindburg, Ramsey, Mrs. Benton of Ft. Scott; Messrs. Zellars, Otto and A.H. Greef, Baker, Sharper, Weygant, Goddard, Wardell, Orndorff, Callahan, Geo. Playter, Smith, Richey; Mr. and Mrs. Playter, Mr. and Mrs. Hogeboom, Mr. and Mrs. Campbell.

Refreshments of moon and star shaped sandwiches, cake, cocoa, chocolate, coffee, sweet pickles, fruit, etc., and water were served.

Dancing was the staple article of entertainment, although if you chose to have your fortunes told you just stepped into Rattle Snake cave where you would find a direct descendant of the witches of the time of Rogers Williams banishment.

The "Devil" also attracted a great deal of attention — it had been so long since he had been interviewed personally.

At the entrance a double blind door was first approached and at which very laughable contortions were gone through in order to affect an entrance into an exceedingly weird and dismal apartment very ably decorated with owls, bats, ravens, coffins, skulls, skeletons, devils, witches, spiders, wizards, snakes and other objects of extremely grewsome nature.

Light was shed by a new moon and stars and taken altogether with the mysterious rappings, etc., it was as perfect a — well you can at least imagine what it was like anyhow.

Souvenirs of silhouettes of various animals of an awe inspiring nature were drawn by each wizard and witch, there being two sets, and the wizard drawing the one to match that in possession of the witch, attended said witch to refreshments.

Many happy returns of the occasion were wished the host and hostess about 1 o'clock, when all departed stating the "climax had been capped" in the social world of Pittsburg.

Party co-host Bella Maxwell was Isabella (or Isabelle) Maxwell, a daughter of Edward Lilley Maxwell and Dorothy Gates Maxwell. She was 28 at the time and she went on to marry one of the men who attended this party — Otto Greef (no relation).

They had at least two children, but Bella died in 1900 at age 35, probably of child-birth complications, eight days after the birth of her son H. Frederick. The April 11, 1900, edition of the Pittsburg Daily Headlight states the following:

"Isabelle Dorothy, wife of Otto Greef, died at the family residence 407 West Euclid avenue this morning at 3 o'clock of blood poison. ... In November, 1894, she was united in marriage with Otto Greef, who with three children survive her. She was a most estimable woman, and her friends were many. She loved her home, children and husband, and she will be sadly missed by them. The sorrowing family and relatives have the sympathy of the community."

Husband Otto lived until 1937, when he died at age 69. Records do not indicate that he remarried. We can hope that he shared happy stories about the spook-themed 1893 party, which is possibly even where he first met his future wife.

How folks had Halloween fun in October 1971

Here's a clipping from the October 17, 1971, edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer that could easily be Page 1 of a script from a 1970s horror flick about the dangers of messing around with the paranormal in suburbia.

Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey was also the author of The Bermuda Triangle and They Dared the Devil's Triangle. But it was her ghost books that my mom loved. Ghosts in the Valley and More Ghosts in the Valley, a pair of staplebound books about "real-life" hauntings around southeastern Pennsylvania, were well-worn and remained on Mom's bookshelf until she died.

On the "About the Author" page of Mom's old copy of Ghosts in the Valley, we are informed that Jeffrey was "a well-entrenched 'ghost-chaser', author and lecturer in the Delaware Valley area. Of Hungarian descent, she has brought the love of ghostly lore from an ancestral valley at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains in Hungary to the shadowed vales of the Delaware Valley."

I don't know how Jeffrey's in-home occult demonstrations worked, but author Stephanie Hoover wrote the following in an extensive 2012 appreciation of Jeffrey:

"Newspapers of the day announced her public appearances by telling readers that the 'Mistress of the Macabre' was scheduled to speak at one locale or another. Three-hundred people turned up for an appearance at a Ridley Township library where she demonstrated divining rods and discussed her view that many people have gifts such as ESP but keep quiet out of fear of ridicule. She also told the group this: 'I don't believe any spirits ever come back. Spirits are projected thoughts that come from the mind.'"

There is a Ghosts in the Valley website where you can learn more about Jeffrey's books, though it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2011.

Scholastic book: "Spooky Tricks"

Announcement: For "Mild Fear 2017," I'm just going to sprinkle Halloween-themed posts throughout the month, whenever I darn well feel like, instead of the past practice of funneling all of the spooky stuff into the last 10 or 12 days of October, in an orderly fashion.

I understand this might cause some of you to pine for the good old days, when Papergreat was logical and regimented and everything was businesslike and ship-shape. When the world make sense. Before those kids came along and stood on your finely manicured lawn.

Well, too bad. Times are changing. Papergreat's going all hippie now and doing whatever it likes. It's going to be crazy and messy!

Now, please let me finish this post, so I can go alphabetize my bookmarks.

• Title: Spooky Tricks
• Authors: Rose Wyler and Gerald Ames
• Illustrator: Tālivaldis Stubis
• Publisher: Scholastic Book Services (TW 1484)
• Cover price: 50 cents
• Year: First printing, September 1969
• Pages: 64
• Format: Paperback
• Contents: "How to be a Spook," "Willie the Ghost," and "Haunted House"
• Random paragraph #1 from middle: "Tell your friends, 'When I go spooking, I sometimes need a helper. I have a good one. My helper is a very small ghost. His name is Willie. Do you want to meet him?'"
• Random paragraph #2 from middle: "Show your cat and say, 'I had a spooky kitten that became a spooky cat. She sparkles in the dark. Now what do you think of that!'"
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.11 stars (out of 5.0)
• A Goodreads review: Denise writes: "This 'I Can Read Book' from 1968 explains simple magic tricks kids can do. The first chapter explains how to be a spook with an extra finger, a pincushion thumb, and x-ray eyes and how to stop your pulse. In another chapter Willie The Ghost writes a lemon juice message, sleeps in a matchbox, and ties a knot. The Haunted House chapter teaches the way to make a mummy finger in a box, electric cat and disappearing girl. The groovy purple and green drawings are by Tālivaldis Stubis."
• About the authors: Rose and Gerald were a husband-and-wife writing team. He died in 1993 and she died in 2000. Here is an excerpt from her obituary in The New York Times, which mentions this book:
  

  Rose Wyler, who wrote more than 50 books for children on science and other topics, died on June 12 at her home in Manhattan. She was 90.
  
  Ms. Wyler was the sole author of over two dozen books and a co-author of others. One of her best-known works is Spooky Tricks (1968), which she wrote with her husband Gerald Ames. When it was reissued in 1994, Scripps Howard News Service called it "the perfect Halloween book" for "school-agers who are just beginning to read."
  
  Ms. Wyler once recalled that as a girl she "always had a collection of stones, bugs or leaves and always wanted to know more about nature." She never could find books on nature as a child, she said, so at 11 she decided she was going to write them.

• About the illustrator: Stubis died in late 2009. Here is his brief obituary from Publishers Weekly:
  

  Talivaldis Stubis, the prolific graphic designer and artist, died late last year at the age of 83, after a long battle with amyloidosis.
  
  Stubis illustrated nearly two dozen books over his long career, including Sir Alva and the Wicked Wizard by Otto Friedrich, Sam's Place by Lillian Moore, and many by the husband-and-wife team Rose Wyler and Gerald Ames. In 1962 his A Pocketful of Seasons was named one of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the Year. His books were published by many of the leading houses of the day, including Harper & Row, Lothrop Lee and Shepard, Scholastic, Atheneum, Seabury Press, Parents Magazine Press, and Doubleday.
  
  In addition to his work for children, he also designed many iconic movie and theater posters, including, for Broadway, Funny Girl, Camelot, and Anyone Can Whistle; and for Hollywood, The Sting and The Exorcist.

  Whoa, whoa, whoa. We have buried the lede, people!
  
  A news release issued upon Stubis' death adds the following, with regard to his amazing legacy of Broadway and Hollywood design work:
  
  
  

  Perhaps the artist's most memorable image was for the Broadway musical, “Funny Girl,” an upside-down girl on roller skates whose body spells out the title, but he worked on literally hundreds of other now-iconic posters for stage and screen. His Broadway works included Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” “Camelot,” “The Most Happy Fella,” “Anyone Can Whistle,” “Night of the Iguana,” and “Flower Drum Song.” From 1963 to 1980 Stubis was senior art director for a boutique agency working on many of the best-known movie poster campaigns of the 20th century, including Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” and “Barry Lyndon,” “Deliverance,” The Sting, and The Exorcist. Later he worked on many of the most popular film campaigns for Paramount Pictures, including “Airplane!” “Elephant Man,” “Reds,” “Ordinary People,” “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “Witness,” “Star Trek,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  Holy movie history, Batman!

October: The month of gags and folly

As we turn the calendar page, we also turn our attention back to 1978's Hayes Tips and Clues for Every Bulletin Board (first mentioned a couple of weeks ago). This is one of the suggested classroom bulletin-board displays for October.

Featuring a witch, a pumpkin and something that appears to be a black cat merged with a chipmunk, the bulletin board casts October as a month of "gags" and "folly." I reckon that's less disturbing for schoolchildren than dubbing October the month of "Ritual Sacrifice" and "Fires of Samhain."

Either way, October is here. The month for gorgeous foliage, chillier nights, apple cider, winds rustling in the trees, Indian corn, hayrides and pumpkin-spice everything.

And, of course, Halloween. If you're looking to settle into the October mood, here are some previous Papergreat series to check out:

• 2011's Halloween Countdown (mildly disconcerting ephemera)
• Mild Fear 2016
• Mild Fear 2015