Natural to select this couplet of images for the post this week. These were in the Meg and Dave archives, and they imply what looks like a group of children grouped together in costume, likely dressed up for Halloween (or similar) festivities. I recently read something about American traditions for dressing up for Halloween starting around the 1930’s — I’m estimating that these come from anytime between 1930’s-1950’s.

The costume styles are intriguing — grotesque-style large gravestone shaped, masks with small eye holes are used by 3 of the children — 2 are identical which makes me suspect they were purchased as compared to home-made. There’s interesting rocket-ship details. Olivia described them as “weird and awkward”. Charlotte needed clarification that they weren’t real, as she suspected.

I’m quite uncertain about whether these derive from the Pickett or Jordan side, so it’s hard to really know who we are seeing here (limited visibility), or where this is taken (perhaps someone knows this particular brick wall/fireplace with what looks like a samurai sword, ridden by a skeleton).

The colorized versions looked reasonable and add a little life to the spooky littles, so I’ve included them below.

Infobox

Questions

• Who might these kids be? Or can we at least narrow it down to Pickett vs. Jordan side?
• Any favorite halloween or fall/harvest celebration or trunk-or-treat style memories that have stayed with you?