Vintage Hallowe'en postcard: Witch declares that she's No. 1

OK, maybe I shouldn't assume she's a witch. Maybe she's just a daffy old lady wearing colorful clothes who went out to sweep the dirt road in front her house and is raising a finger for a passing ESPN College GameDay cameraman.

Unfortunately, no publisher is listed on front or back of this Hallowe'en postcard, which was mailed in October 1911 and also features an alarmed black cat, an owl, a bunch of carved pumpkins in a field and a starry night. Does anyone have any ideas about what her raised index finger really means? She could be pointing upward to something that we can't see, perhaps flying witches or Rodan or an alien mothership. She could be indicating that she, herself, plans to ride upward on her broom in a few moments. Or she could be testing the wind direction in preparation for such flight. So many possibilities...

This postcard was mailed to Miss Ruth Miller in Erie, Illinois. It's a tiny settlement in the northwest corner of the state that had about 800 residents in 1910 and has about twice that number now.

The note states:

Dear Ruth.
Don't you ever come to Albany anymore? I haven't seen you for such a long time. Can't you come in and see my? [sic] I'll take you over to school with me. Sounds interesting doesn't it? Haha.
Lovingly, Lida.

Albany must be Albany, Illinois, which is also located in northwestern Illinois, about 12 miles northwest of Erie. That's not too daunting of a distance, even for 1911. I hope Ruth went for a visit eventually.

Other vintage Halloween postcards

• 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

Dark & stormy night Halloween flick picks from Twitter's cool kids

Happy Halloween! This post is, appropriately enough, emanating from the Witching Hour (Eastern Daylight Time) of Halloween 2016. For me, one of the many great things about Halloween is that it's a socially acceptable time to watch and discuss scary movies. A conversation starter I've come up with along those lines is this: The trick-or-treaters are gone. It's getting a little stormy outside. You're going to turn out the lights and settle in for the night with a bowl of popcorn, perhaps some good friends or a three-legged black cat, and a triple-header of horror movies. What three movies would you pick?

I want the answers to be personal favorites. Comfort-food horror, if there is such a thing. My three, which change slightly over the years, are very solid but fairly uninspired. But they're my picks, so they're perfect in my world: 1959's House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart, the iconic 1968 Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero, and 1978's Halloween by John Carpenter, the holiday's ultimate dark fairy tale. Two unsurprising picks and a Vincent Price flick that Sarah and I could watch every single day. I love many other horror films, from classic to funny to terrifying. But those three represent the perfect Halloween night, in my eyes.

I wanted to share some other responses and thoughts. So I posed the horror-movie question to some of the great folks my Twitter feed (I'm @Papergreat, of course). They stopped what they were doing and here are the responses that they very generously came up with when I asked them about their personal three movies to watch on Halloween.

1. David Southwell (@HooklandGuide and @cultauthor)
Author, creator of fantastic realities such as Hookland County. I interviewed him for a two-part post last October, which starts here.

• Quatermass and the Pit (1967) "The horror we love is often the horror we grew up with. It will not scare, the special effects creak and yet this is a gem of an English horror cinema. Both as well-structured thriller and depiction of swelling mystery, it stands up to repeated viewing."¹
• The Wicker Man (1974) "Possibly the best horror film of all time. Watch the uncut version and you will find a map of fear that leads you back to ancient places within the DNA museum. Stunning."
• Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) "I first saw this whilst in a war zone. It takes a lot for a horror film to mean anything when it is viewed in the context of true human brutality, true monstrosity. More bloody than I usually like my horror, this turns the stomach and the mind."

2. J.W. Ocker (@JWOcker)
Creator of the Odd Things I've Seen (OTIS) website and author of several books, the most recent of which is A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts.

• The Body Snatcher (1945, with Karloff & Lugosi)
• The Changeling (1980)²
• Dark Was the Night (2014)

3. Cheryl Zaidan (@FeralCherylZ)
Her Twitter bio: "Full-time marketer, part-time writer, horror movie lover and hardcore dreamer. I write awful stories about terrible people." She's one of the coolest folks I follow on Twitter.

• Halloween (1978)
• Trick 'r Treat (2007)
• Night of the Demons (1988)

4. Colin Lorimer (@Colin_Lorimer)
He's a writer/artist whose supernatural comic book, The Hunt, from Image Comics, needs to be on your pull list.

• The Innocents (1961)
• Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
• Dead of Night (1945)

5. Emma Finlayson-Palmer (@FinlaysonPalmer)
Her partial bio: "Mom to 5, Ravenclaw & Writer, I love witches, vampires, cakes, tattoos, tea & zombies." You can read her blog here.

• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
• Shaun of the Dead (2004)

6. Undine (@HorribleSanity)
Bio: "Edgar Allan Poe/strange history blogger. Horseplayer. Tweeter of damn fool nonsense. Crazy Cat Lady. Grouch. Abandon hope, all ye who follow here." Blog: strangeco.blogspot.com. Note: If you like seeing how cats are featured in vintage advertising, this is a must-follow Twitter account.

• An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (Vincent Price, 1970) "Hey, Price and Poe. What more do you need?"
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) "What makes this film so terrifying is that the world in recent years leaves me feeling like Kevin McCarthy in the final scene."
• Carnival of Souls (1962)³ "I first saw this on TV when I was about five years old. Cheap and cheesy though it might be, there is something about this eerie movie that has held my imagination ever since."

So there you have it! Thanks again to all of the great people above who took the time to share their thoughts. (I also queried Bill Rebane⁴, who follows me on Twitter, but he didn't get back to me.) I definitely have some great new suggestions for scary movies to check out between now and Halloween 2017.

What are your favorites? Share them down in the Comments section and I'll include them in a future From The Readers post.

Footnotes
1. I grew up loving Quatermass and the Pit. Only, it was titled Five Million Years to Earth over here in the States.
2. I love The Changeling, too. It mention it in my 2013 post "Which movies gave you the biggest fright?"
3. Carnival of Souls became another one of my favorites after I discovered it about 10 years ago.
4. Bill Rebane, 79, is the director of such horror films as Monster a-Go Go, The Giant Spider Invasion, The Alpha Incident, The Demons of Ludlow, and The Game (aka The Cold). He is a former candidate for governor of Wisconsin. If he eventually answers, I'll share his selections.

Vintage Halloween postcard sent to Hulda Jacobus: The Witch's Dance

Here's a beauty of an old postcard; one of the most colorful ones I've had the opportunity to feature. It's part of the Halloween Series issued by Julius Bien & Co. It's labeled "The Witch's Dance" and it, indeed, features a red-headed witch dancing with a pair of anthropomorphic pumpkin men and an extremely gleeful black cat. The fiery autumn leaves lay on the green grass and stars are twinkling in the crescent-moon sky behind them. What a fun postcard! Not at all creepy, but 100% Halloween.

Dancing a little jig is a totally appropriate response to it being the day before Halloween, too. (And I still have two more dandy vintage cards remaining to share tomorrow.)

Underneath the illustration, someone has written, in pencil, "IS THAT YOU? HA HA." So, perhaps, this postcard was intended for a red-headed witch, a black cat or even a pumpkin-based person. Probably it's the first one. The address on the back had this going to Hulda Jacobus in Millstadt, Illinois.

Hulda Jacobus is a great name and I intend this in the best way possible when I say that it totally sounds like a name that an awesome witch would have. Clearly, a good witch. Because her name is so uncommon, it's not hard to find a little information about Hulda. She was born in Millstadt¹, a village filled with Americans of German descent, on February 22, 1896, to Peter Jacobus and Caroline Tegtmeir. She had a sister named Viola. She married Eugene Edward Brucker (1896-1987) and had a child. And she died on December 7, 1961, in St. Louis, Missouri.

And that's it. A little more biographical information would be nice, but that's a good start.

This postcard, by the way, has no stamp or postmark, so I'm not sure if or how it was ever delivered to Hulda. But here's the short note:

Hello,
How do you intend to celebrate Hallowe'en. I was to a Hallowe'en Party last night.
Viola

Viola! So we can be 99% certain, I think, that this postcard was from her sister. I'd like to think they were both good witches.

Footnotes
1. As of this writing, the Wikipedia page for Millstadt includes a short section that I hope remains there forever. If not, here it is for posterity: "Some of the great stores in town include Dollar General, Casey's General Store, and Circle K. Circle K is a popular kid destination."

Mystery vintage postcard: "Haunted House" near Delaware, Ohio

This postcard was mailed from Delaware, Ohio, to Washington, D.C. in the final few days of October 1906.¹ The recipient was Mr. Walter Dill of 910 E. St. N.W. The short note on the front states: "Write to 33½ S. Second St., Newark, Licking Co. We changed our minds since I wrote. Allie." Licking County is located in smack-dab central Ohio, and was named for the salt licks there.

And so this postcard, which was produced by Evans & Sons, features the mysterious caption: "HAUNTED HOUSE — THE, TOMB, near Delaware, Ohio." (Not quite sure what's up with that comma after "THE." It could be either a typo or a clue.)

Delaware, Ohio, is the county seat of Delaware County, which is adjacent to and west of Licking County.

The picture on the postcard is, indeed, something that resembles a tomb. But what's up with the "haunted house" and this forlorn tomb?

First discovery: There were variations of this postcard back in the day. A 2013 post on the wonderfully titled blog "The Strange and Spooky World of James A. Willis" features a card with the same photo but a slightly different design. No other answers there, though.

A different postcard, produced by The American News Company and featuring two images, is featured on the Delaware County Historical Society website. But, again, there is little other information.

I guess there's always the possibility that, 100-plus years ago, a photographer working for a postcard company got a good photo of a creepy tomb and they decided that a postcard with a creepy photo and the words "haunted house" would sell well. So they slapped it together and published it, without there being any actual good ghost stories associated with the site.

One last source I might try to track down is author John Ciochetty, who has written at least one book on the historic ghosts of Delaware, Ohio.

Either way, whether there's a spooky story that goes with this postcard or not, it's possible that information is lost in the sands of time.

Footnote
1. Also that month, the Chicago White Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs, 4 games to 2, in the World Series. It was the first of three World Series appearances in a row for the Cubs, who trail the Cleveland Indians, 2 games to 1, in the 2016 World Series, as I write this.

Yes Virginia, there is a place called the Castle Halloween Museum

This dandy modern postcard, featuring creepy toys gathering in the forest, is an advertisement for a place called the Castle Halloween Museum. When the card was printed, the museum was located in Benwood, West Virginia, a tiny city in the northern prong of that state.

But, as I started to do some research, I discovered that the museum moved and is now located in central (slightly west-central) Pennsylvania — Altoona, to be exact. Here are some images from the museum's website, which is simply www.castlehalloween.com.

The most important thing to know, if you want to make a spook-tastic field trip to Altoona on this Halloween weekend (or any other time) is that admission to the museum is by appointment only. Specifically, the website states:

HOURS/TOURS ARE BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
AND MUST BE BOOKED IN ADVANCE
So call the museum at (814) 940-1031 before you solidify your Pennsylvania haunted road-trip travel plans.

The trip would be more than worth. Here's a rundown of some of the museum's contents:

• over 35,000 Halloween-related artifacts "from Arcade Machines to Zany Day of the Dead displays"
• Southern pottery face jugs, from Meaders to Rogers (over 200 examples)
• Voodoo flags and paintings
• figural folk art by artists like Jack Roads, Alan Cunningham, Linda Wolf, Debbee Thibault and Tubby Brown
• "learn about Mother Shipton, Dennison & the Bogie Book"
• candy and ice cream molds
• "vintage Jack O lanterns, advertising, toys, candy containers and decorations"
• "Original art, sheet music, magazines, Salem Witch, bats, spiders, fortune telling, games ... and Harry Potter"

And you might even come away with an awesome collectible. According to the website: "The antique shop here is where you will find most of our duplicate items and that is one of the ways we try and pay the heating and electric bills and restore the building."

The museum owners and curators are Pamela Apkarian-Russell and Chris Russell. Pamela Apkarian-Russell is an author, lecturer and curator of all things Halloween. Some of her books include Collectible Halloween, More Halloween Collectibles: Anthropomorphic Vegetables and Fruits of Halloween, A Collector's Guide to Salem Witchcraft and Souvenirs and Halloween Collectible Decorations and Games.

If you've been to the museum or go at a future date, let us know what it's like in the comments section.

Halloween horror for chickens

So much of Halloween is about scaring humans. We should have some spooky stuff for poultry, too.

This should do it.

The 3¼-inch-wide piece of paper, possibly intended as a flimsy coaster for drinks, features a perspiring chicken being chased by a chef with a large knife. The chicken seems to understand the mortal danger facing it and is fleeing like it's a teenage babysitter being pursued by a slasher in a Shatner mask.

Buen Provecho! translates to bon appétit, which translates to "enjoy your meal." (With your meal coming at the chicken's expense.)

Hotel Avila gets three stars (out of five possible) from TripAdvisor and is ranked as the 32nd-best (out of 86) hotel in Caracas, Venezuela. But that's by no means a scientific assessment.

And it doesn't include any of the reviews provided by chickens, who would presumably give it one star, at most, if they could get onto the internet.

Vintage photos of folks in costumes

What are you going to dress up as for Halloween on Monday? Clearly, this is not a smart year to dress up as a clown, scary or otherwise. (Mimes and jesters are probably right out, too.)

I hope we're spared from having too many people amble around as Trump or Clinton. From some of the stories I've seen, it would appear that we'll have a lot of superheroes, Star Wars characters (trending toward the most recent movie), pirates and witches. So, in other words, a typical year, with perhaps a few more Harley Quinns than usual walking the streets and seeking candy.

Here are a few old photographs of people dressed up in costume, starting with a pair of found photos that have no identifying information.

This next one is from the family archives. I don't think it's Halloween, per se, because it's dated May 1914. It features a large group of men, half of whom are in drag. (There are also, unfortunately, a couple of men in blackface, a practice that didn't start to disappear until the 1960s in the United States.) Apparently, my great-grandfather, Howard Horsey Adams, is in this group photo, possibly dressed as a woman.

Here's the whole photo (which can be seen in a larger version if you click on it), plus a few closeups...

Finally, because it's only fair, here's a photo of me dressed up for a Halloween party 20 years ago. I kind of miss that shirt.

Exaggerated postcard: W.H. Martin is very proud of his pumpkins

This never-used "real" photo postcard, printed on Kodak's Azo paper, features some century-old photo trickery that makes is look like these farmers are harvesting pumpkins the size of Volkswagen Beetles.¹ The effect is fairly well done. If you didn't inherently know that gourds of that size were implausible, you might not immediately doubt the veracity of the image. The subterfuge is helped by that fact that it's a black-and-white photograph, and thus there are fewer colors and shades that have to match tonally.

There is an extensive history of exaggerated, or tall-tale, postcards from the early 1900s through at least the 1960s. Fruits, vegetables, peanuts, animals and bugs were all subjects of the humorous cards. They are highly collectible and there are many websites featuring galleries of vintage cards.

Here's a closeup of the text from the bottom of this postcard...

It states:
Copyrighted Photograph 1908
by W.H. Martin Ottawa, Kan.

A different version of this card, seen here on Flickr, has a caption in the upper-right corner that states: "pumpkins grown on our soil are profitable."

According to The Robinson Library website, Martin was a pioneer in this "field":

"One of the first producers of exaggerated postcards was William H. Martin, of Ottawa, Kansas. Martin's photography studio began experimenting with trick photography around 1908. His work featured huge ears of corn and peaches, a giant rabbit being tracked by a car, and pumpkins uprooting a farmstead. He was so successful that he established the Martin Post Card Company in 1909, and reportedly produced seven million exaggerated postcards the next year."

More about Martin, who was nicknamed "Dad," can be found in this 2013 article by Michael Bushnell at northeastnews.com.

To see galleries of exaggerated postcards from the past, you need only type that phrase into Google. Or, if you prefer, some sites you can check out are the Wisconsin Historical Society, io9, The American Museum of Photography, Postcrossing and Doctor Fong's House of Mysteries.²

Footnotes
1. Of course, this postcard is from 1908 and the Beetle wasn't introduced until 1934. So that's a retroactive-anachronistic metaphor (depending when you are in the space-time continuum while reading this post.)
2. As if I would ever pass on an opportunity to include the title "Doctor Fong's House of Mysteries" on Papergreat. In fact, I might just start over from scratch with the whole blog and rename it Doctor Fong's House of Ephemera.