Dad wrote:
Halloween itself was also somewhat different from what it is today. No one had invented Trick or Treat, but we did go up and down the street to call on friends and neighbors. We always wore masks and usually costumes (at least when we were young). Favorite costumes were the easiest ones -- tramps, old women, ghosts, or cowboys. (We all had our own cowboy outfits. Mine consisted of sheepskin chaps, a plaid wool shirt, a leather vest, and of course a white ten gallon hat.) Clowns, Mexicans, and Chinamen also prowled the streets, having probably purchased their costumes at Penny Walker's, the favorite toy store in town, located on the north side of Court Street halfway between Chenango and Carroll Streets.
I once had a purchased
costume, too. It was an Uncle Sam outfit complete with red
and white striped pants, blue jacket, hat with stars and last
but not least a flowing grey beard that fastened under the
chin on an elastic strap that reached around behind the head
and was mostly hidden by the hat. It must have been the first
for a Halloween party at school where for many years it was
well remembered and often requested when any sort of
patriotic program was to be given. After I had outgrown it,
Mother kept it for years in the attic wrapped in tissue paper
in a Marean-Lauder suit box so she would know exactly where
it was when it was needed. Finally, succumbing to an urge to
clean out the attic, she gave the costume, box and all, to
the school and turned the responsibility for its care over to
the educators.
Member, Alpha
Tau Omega 