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.. 

A 1913 graduate of Otterbein had a passion for raising and showing prize chickens. One might assume that he would grow up to raise poultry… he became a writer instead.