Halloween Countdown 2021: Day 6

This year we kick off our Halloween Countdown with Katherine, a shadow from the past. The mysterious "Katherine" mailed the postcard below from Camden, New Jersey, to my great uncle, Charles, who in 1910 lived in the railroad town in the Potomac River valley in western Maryland. Katherine never revealed if she and Charles were more than friends. She did include a "friendly" message and it was no secret that Charles was well-known in the community for his mischief.  He turned 34 that year working as a successful small-town banker who like many men of his generation never married. We have scores of postcards from Katherine in our archives, but she never signed her last name, and to this day she remains a mystery woman to the family. If there was some mischief going on, it belongs to the ages.

Dear Friend, Charles: I sincerely hope you are enjoying life to the full extent. I suppose you will be out for mischief tomorrow night. Halloween is always the biggest night in the year for me. Katherine

Tonight's music comes from the imagination of Serge Prokofiev and it's perfect for spooky owls, fearful cats, and flying bats. Witches, too.

And here is a fitting poem about Halloween by Carl Sandburg from his Chicago Poems, 1916.

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o’-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.