World War One ended much sooner and much faster than anyone could have predicted.  Unfortunately, wars do not stop on a dime and send everyone home the next day.  Nearly six million men were mobilized, and when the war ended, getting them home was almost as vast an undertaking as getting them to the scene of the action.  The short duration of the war devastated many a soldier’s plans for life. Not surprisingly, there was a clamor from the soldiers to get home and back to “normalcy,”

A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.  [Clement Clarke Moore (attributed), “A Visit from St. Nicholas,”1823]

Halloween, the October 31 holiday which celebrates all things scary, is a relatively recent creation.  With roots in ancient Celtic tradition, All Hallows Eve has a long pedigree.  But Halloween as we know it today is largely an American creation.  It started with the Scotts-Irish immigrants, who found the American pumpkin a more easily carved vegetable for making jack o’lanterns.   Fortune telling and cider-and-donut parties merged with juvenile hooliganism and outhouse-tipping.  Fearing the alleged rise of delinquency, the holiday was channeled into more manageable trick or treating at the turn of the century.  By the 1920s, Halloween was more respectable, more child-friendly, and more controlled. That’s when the Anti-Saloon League in Westerville hopped on the Halloween bandwagon.

[i] Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2002..