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When we were young: Couple shares Halloween memories from the 40s, 50s

By Staff | Nov 10, 2023

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Barbara and Ron Phillips, who were Hughesville residents in their youth, share some Halloween memories from the 1940’s and 1950’s, the ‘good old days,’ with the Luminary’s Shirley Confer Boatman. The story below is a first-hand account of the memories they shared.)

By Ron and Barbara

Confer Phillips   

My sisters Joan, Jeanne, and Shirley and I grew up in Hughesville in the 1940’s and 50’s. Ron Phillips moved to town in 1943 when he  was in fourth grade. His parents were Arden and Jenny Phillips, and they lived on South Railroad Street. Both Ron and I have our  versions of Hughesville’s Halloween Nights. They are not the same. Mine are fun and  scary. His are laced with tricks and memories of running like hades to make a getaway after some mischief. Both make us laugh at the  nostalgic innocence of those times. 

Kenny and Murl Confer and we four girls  lived on an alley at 59 Rear South Main  Street, behind Ben Walters’ house. One side  of our house and yard ran parallel to Diggan’s  John Deere Store, with farming equipment  and hay in the back barn. On the other side  was the alley, parallel to a garage (which  would become The Ford Garage). The garage had  many dark-paned windows. This alley ran  from Main Street, past our house and  barn, and into another alley. Charlie Walters cut through it a  couple times every day on his way from his  house on Second Street to his Silkmill. 

It was just a regular old alley, but on Halloween it seemed to take on its’ own  darkness and spooky aura. Despite our mother’s  calm assurance that Halloween was all for  fun, sisters Jeanne and Joan (Shirley was most likely only a few months old) were  afraid that

someone would come to the  door to scare them. So they would run up to Mother and Dad’s bedroom and stay there. I  would have been 12 years old and poopooed  their silliness. But those two sisters stayed  upstairs all night long.

Neither Ron nor I could recall dressing up in a costume and going door to door for candy  treats. He does recall having a mask when he was  little, probably a Lone Ranger half-mask, as  that was his hero.

Ron and his friends didn’t think about the ‘Treat’ part of “Trick or Treat,” but went straight for the ‘Tricks’ on Halloween Night. He recalls that he and his buddies were  more for banging on doors and soaping car  windows and prank-playing. Some  undisclosed pals lured Mr. Harold Schaeffer,  the high school principal, out of his house  and as one knelt down behind him, the other  gave a little push and there he went, down onto  the ground. And then they all ran. Fortunately, no repercussions came out of  that antic. Mr. Schaeffer turned out to be a pretty good guy, who didn’t “tell on them.” 

A handy Halloween device, Tic-Tac-Toes were  made from wooden thread spools by  nicking slots around the top and attaching a  large nail to heavy thread onto the spool. Windows of homes usually had lace  curtains that you could see through, so people sitting in their  living rooms became the perfect target to sneak up on and let the noise of the spinning spool  rattling against the window shock and startle those  unsuspecting residents! Of course, that was hilarious to the Halloweeners, who ran away laughing and gasping for breath!

Whitey, the town cop, came to our door one time on November 1, and I was one among others  who had to go and clean up all the trees in town that had been decorated with toilet  paper. Some others had to clean eggs off porches and cars, a little messier than toilet paper gathering. I guess there were lots of us who liked the ‘Trick’ part of Halloween.

Close to Doc Wren’s cabin near Lairdsville, bold Halloweeners stood on both sides of the  road with toilet paper stretched across it. Cars driving on Rt.114 came upon this white paper so fast, hitting the brakes, screeching and swerving, and thrilling the  pranksters, but probably not the  Pennsylvania State Police — or the drivers of the screeching cars. 

Neither Ron nor I remember getting a pillowcase  of candy or our parents driving us to the rich side  of town or even getting dressed up in a fancy  costume from The Halloween Store. But they are fun memories, some things not so bad,  and the punishment, if caught, was a valuable  lesson…even as Whitey our town cop, muffled his laughs as he watched the town’s kids  clean up toilet paper, eggs and soaped car  windows. That was the best of all times,  when we were young. And the best of all places, Hughesville, Pennsylvania.Â