Halloween at 143 Pries

Here are some photos taken at a Halloween/birthday party for Thom.  I’m guessing its his first birthday—Halloween 1952.  My mother went all out with the decorations and invited a bunch of kids, both cousins and neighbors.  The first photo shows what the dining room looked like before the guests arrived.

Last time we met on Zoom, Kali asked about my grandmother, my mother’s mother, Mary Homen.  She’s the adult in these photos, and she’s smiling!  I figure she must be about 60 years old here.  Standing next to Gram (as we called her) is Butch, probably age 10.  Being a hobo (what we now refer to as a homeless person and what was then often called a tramp) for Halloween was very common back then, hence the marked up face and tousled hair.  Next to Butch is little Thom staring up at my cousin Veronica Steiner, and next to her in the back row is Bill.  I can’t remember what Bill dressed up as, but I bet it has something to do with Buck Rogers and outer space.  Next to Bill is our cousin Kevin Carroll.  All the way over to the left in the back row is our cousin Carole Homen.  The Homen kids lived upstairs from us.  In front of Carole is Mary Ellen (Mame) Gatta, one of my good friends.  Mame lived across the street from us and was known as the neighborhood tomboy, a term not used (thankfully) these days.  (I say “thankfully” because I have a great fondness for girls who are athletic and into sports and extreme physical activity.  That was not me, but thankfully it describes my daughters and my granddaughters.  Yay!)

Then there’s my cousin Nancy Homen, almost always dressed up for Halloween as a gypsy.  Next to Nancy and a little bit behind her is Francie Walsh, another one of my good friends, who lived two doors down from us. Looks like she’s wearing lipstick—maybe another gypsy.  Next to Francie is yours truly, wearing a mask and a clown costume that my mother made for us. (A masked clown?  Seems strange but then again others wore masks too—maybe just a Halloween thing then.)  To my left is my cousin Ellen Steiner, also wearing a mask.  

The two little kids in the front row are my cousin Mike Homen and my cousin Rainey Steiner.  (BTW, the Steiner siblings are the three daughters of my father’s sister Veronica.  They had two brothers who did not make it into these photos.)  Mike is a cowboy, another favorite choice for Halloween.  There were no store-bought costumes then, just whatever we or our mothers could come up with.

The third photo is of the same cast of characters, minus a few.  (I’m debating now whether Thom is 1 or 2 years old in these photos.)  I pushed my mask up for this photo.  Bill is here, but not Butch.  It’s definitely a better picture of my grandmother and of Thom, the birthday boy.  A point of interest for me here are the photos hanging on the wall behind Gram.  That’s a professionally taken picture of Bill when he was a baby and above it is the photo I sent you already of the three of us dressed up in our cowboy outfits on Christmas.  I think it’s amazing that I still have the original of that Christmas photo.

~ Maryellen Thirolf, October 2023