Ghosts of Halloweens Past

It snowed a bit on Saturday (October 17^th). I was out for a long walk in the morning and it started to spit some big, fluffy, white stuff for a few minutes. It was pretty, and no big deal, especially since it was five days later than last year’s first snow, which came on October 12^th. Then we had some more flurries on Monday. On Tuesday, I woke up to a winter weather advisory and the expectation of several inches of snow. I guess the most alarming part about this prediction was the phrase which our local newspaper meteorologist used at the end of this forecast: “this snow will probably melt.” In other words, he was saying he can’t promise anything, but he’s hopeful that this particular snow won’t still be on the ground in late March, or whenever the thaw comes. When we went out to vote on Tuesday, the snow had started. I had left my driver’s license in my running clothes, so we had to go back home to get it. Then we were stopped for a TV interview on the way out of city hall. (I think they were intrigued by the fact that I wore a Chicago Cubs facemask, while Kathleen wore her St. Louis Cardinals mask.) The upshot of all of this is, that by the time we were winding our way back home, the snow was several inches thick and getting deeper; the streets were so slick that we couldn’t make it up the hill to our home. Luckily, Ben and his family lived right there, at the bottom of the hill. I borrowed a shovel and cleared two tire tracks up the steep, 150-yard hill, so we were able to get home. We received 8 or 9 inches of snow officially before it stopped, the biggest October snow since the “Halloween Surprise” of 1991.

Still, I’m not scared. Hell, I’m a Wisconsinite now, with one mild winter under my belt, so a little snow can’t frighten me. When I was a child, though, I feared many things. As Halloween approaches in this, the strangest of years, I thought back to those early days in Chicago and some of the things that scared me.

Growing up across the street from a cemetery, I suppose it was inevitable that ghosts would figure prominently in my childhood fears. In fact, my neighborhood of Mount Greenwood was surrounded by cemeteries. Even our local gang called themselves “The Graveyard Gents.” There is a reason for all of the cemeteries. Back in the 1800s, city officials determined that it was a health concern to have disease-ridden corpses buried within city limits. At the time, my neighborhood was outside the city, and at least ten cemeteries existed within about three miles of our house. Later, when those health concerns subsided, Mt. Greenwood was annexed by the large metropolis and became a Chicago neighborhood ringed by graveyards containing tall trees, green grass, and, to my young mind, ghost-infested graves.

Many of Chicago’s best stories about haunted places and ghostly spirits originated in this area and probably stem from the presence of so many cemeteries. People still talk about the ghostly parade of monks that supposedly visited St. Rita Catholic Church in 1961. The Batchelors Grove Cemetery in the nearby forest preserves has produced stories of mysterious lights, phantom cars, and ethereal apparitions. The most famous tale, though, is that of “Resurrection Mary,” a spectral woman dressed in white who was spurned by her boyfriend at a nearby dancehall in the 1920s and has been seen hitch-hiking along Archer Avenue late at night for nearly a century. We knew all of those stories while growing up, and even engaged in a graveyard challenge that was designed to test our fortitude. Al Capone was originally buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, directly across the street from our house. Later, his body was moved to the suburbs, but a family plot and a large marker remains in Mt. Olivet. The game consisted of climbing under the fence and entering the cemetery, alone and after dark, going in several hundred yards and touching Al’s grave, then running like hell back to our secret entrance without getting caught by ghosts or the Mt. Olivet night watchman. I believe that my later prowess as a runner developed in those stress-filled excursions into the graveyard. (The picture above is from my brother’s Christmas greeting from a few years ago. That is the Capone family gravestone in the center)

My house proved to be no haven from such terrors. When I was about 7 or 8, I had a nightmare involving some Halloween novelties that we owned. My siblings and I had these scary-looking, life-size, plastic heads on sticks that we would carry while trick-or-treating. One was a white skeleton skull, and the other was a red devil’s head, complete with sinister horns. In my dream, I was down in our basement—which was dark and scary under the best of circumstances—when these two heads suddenly became animated and began bouncing in the air and chasing me. I woke up screaming, with cold sweats, and I never again felt safe going down to the basement alone. Of course, soon after that terrifying nightmare, my parents built a bedroom for my brother and I down in the very place that produced such uneasiness. On many nights, I slept with my eyes open, ever alert for dancing skulls and devils.

Like many children of my generation, we also had a “witch” living on our block. It should be noted that, as in the Middle Ages, any older woman living alone was suspected of being a witch. Ours was a widow named Nellie Shevlin and she lived in a big, imposing home built on the corner in the early part of the 20^th Century. The rest of our houses on Sacramento Avenue were new,1200-square-feet, tract homes, all indistinguishable from the others. We tormented poor Mrs. Shevlin by calling her nasty names or running through her yard to avoid capture. Chicago folksinger Michael Smith had his own neighborhood witch, as he explained in his song, Crazy Mary:

“Crazy Mary from Londonderry, lived next door to the cemetery;

How many lovers have you buried?” we would shout

As we ran along the green and golden path

That took us home away from Crazy Mary.

Out of curiosity, I looked up Mrs. Shevlin while writing this article. She died in 1984, at age 95, and was buried across the street from her huge house, in Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

The centerpiece of any Halloween for most kids was the wonderful ritual of trick-or-treating. You knock on a stranger’s door, yell some nonsensical phrase, and they give you candy. Great stuff. One year in particular stands out in my memory. In 1964, I was ten years old, and Halloween fell on a Saturday. As soon as my brother Dan and I realized that we would have a longer time than usual for trick-or treating, we planned our attack as if it were a military operation. We had maps, charts, timetables, and contingency plans. We carried pillow cases, assuming our puny paper Halloween sacks would prove unequal to the task of carrying multiple loads of heavy candy. We had to plan carefully so that each time we ventured out, we ended our route just as our bag was filled and ready to empty. We started before noon and continued, with only a short break for dinner, until nine o’clock at night. Each time we circled back to our house, the mountain of candy in our basement bedroom grew larger.

As time has passed, the legendary nature of that eventful Halloween has been aggrandized in the hyperbolic recesses of my memory. I seem to recall other kids in the neighborhood lining the streets and cheering our efforts as we trudged out, time after time, with a dogged determination to fill our bags yet again. I could even swear that at one point General George S. Patton himself stood on the side of the road, his be-medaled chest swelling with pride as he said, “Never before in the history of trick-or-treating have two kids engaged in a major conflict before dinner, emptied their bags at home, and marched right out to do battle again in the evening. By God, I’m proud of those boys!” Then, as the theme music swelled, he fell into step with us and marched along by our sides, just to share in our glory. At least I’m pretty sure it happened that way.

This year, like everything else, the annual cycle of holidays, events, and rituals will be disrupted by the Covid crisis. We have decided that it would not be safe to open the door repeatedly to dozens of kids while Wisconsin Covid cases are spiking dramatically. So no trick-or-treaters this year. Abigail and Lucas are busy building a haunted house, so we will probably just visit with them and give them way too much candy.

That is, unless their haunted house is in the basement. I’m not going down there alone.