How about those parents who deny their children a few Halloween frolics. As the author of this article wrote in 1912, Halloween is the time for making wonderful memories, especially for children.
This article is published here for research purposes only. I do not encourage or recommend that anyone ever do the molten lead divination with children. It can be dangerous.
Halloween Frolics Appeal to Children More Than Any Festivity of the Year
By Julia Chandler Mans
Have you planned a party for Halloween, or have you decided, like the mother of four, who told me the other day that “indeed she didn’t intend to bother with it because it made so much muss?”
While she talked the youngest of the four came rollicking in with an old jack-o’-lantern he had dug out of the attic rubbish, a relic of last year’s fun, and informed me gleefully that next Thursday is Halloween.
I couldn’t quite induce myself to look the little codger square in the eyes, harboring as I did in my mind the information just given me by his mother that there would be no Halloween festivities for the four in her house “because it made such a muss.”
I went home to think it over, and now I am gathering all the friends of The Herald’s Page for Every Woman together for a little hour just to ask them to turn back the pages of their book of life until they reach the one, all yellowed by the years, which bears a record of the meaning of Halloween in that long ago yesteryear when they began weeks ahead to collect the grotesque symbols of this night when “fates are told and love is bold.”
Lived in Memory
I know a dear little old lady who cannot leave her invalid’s chair, but whenever you catch her unawares you find her smiling. I asked her one day to tell me what made the smile; what her mind was doing when her face gave out its radiance.
“Turning back the pages of my life,” she said to me in a tone which told me that she caressed them as she turned.
“You see,” she went on, “I had a childhood so rich in fun that it affords me memories enough to live on through these years when I am just a little old wizened woman, of no earthly good to anybody.”
“Tell me about it,” I questioned, for despite the fact that much attention is given to the upbringing of children in this day and generation, I am not sure that they have nearly so much wholesome fun as in the days of our grandmothers.
She told me a wonderful story of a wonderful mother who made for her little girl a wonderful childhood, and I noticed that the rollicking parties stood out in bold relief against the recital, particularly the Halloween festivities, when the children dared their fates and entered into the mystic spirit of the traditions of the day.
“A happy childhood means more to us through life than our mothers realize in the years when we are little,” she told me, and I am so sure that she was right that I hope the mother of four who isn’t going to bother with Halloween will read this account of the little old lady who can smile through the years of a crippled old age because of the memories of a radiantly happy childhood.
Fascinating to Children
There is no feast day in all the year which is so fascinating to the children as All Hallow Eve; no holiday night so filled with the mysteries which appeal to the childish imagination; no unmaking looked forward to with such eagerness — all of which means that a denial of Halloween rites to the young folks is always the source of the most poignant disappointment.
The Halloween party need not be an expensive affair, and will not be if planned correctly. The outfit for the adventurous evening is most simple, consisting in the main of chestnuts, apples, a tub of water, and, if possible, an open fire. These alone are really necessary for the good old time tests — the burning of nuts, the lighted candle and the mirror, the bobbing for apples, and all the attendant ceremonies.
A simple ceremony, which always makes strong appeal to young minds, is the dough cake. For this corn meal and water are mixed to a paste, balls are made of the dough, each ball containing a tiny piece of paper on which has been written some fortune or initials. As each ball is dropped into water it breaks open and reveals its contents to the anxious eyes of the boy or girl thus daring his or her fate.
Small particles of melted lead dropped into cold water will form into grotesque shapes which may be read by a Halloween group of young people, assisted by their ever ready imaginations, to forecast the future occupation of a husband.
Another Funmaker
Another interesting test is that made with cabbage stalks, which are piled lonely together out on the back porch or in a dark closet as may prove most convenient. The young people go one by one and make a blind choice. The long scraggy stalk or the short chunky one will indicate the build of the future mate of each boy or girl selecting them.
The matter of as much concern to the mother entertaining her children and their friends is the feast, and this too becomes a simple matter when properly considered. If you have an open fire nothing will prove more enjoyable than an oyster roast. Besides the oysters in their shells nothing else is required for the supper other than plates of bread and butter sandwiches, cocoa for the little tots, coffee if the boys and girls are nearing manhood and womanhood.
A still simpler plan is to make the supper of the corn popped over the open fire, the chestnuts roasted there, apples and homemade candle. A marshmallow roast is another simple and entertaining supper arrangements.
Of course, one’s home possibilities regulate both the nature of fortune tests and the refreshments served, as the woman living in a small apartment cannot indulge in the same forms of amusement as the woman who has an old fashioned kitchen and a big fireplace, but must choose more quiet forms of enjoyment.
Source: The Washington Herald. Newspaper. October 27, 1912.
