Holidays in the 1950s

In 1950s Knightstown Halloween wasn’t limited to a one day affair. It went on for at least a week in late October. We began our pranks on about the 20th and started the “trick or treat” thing by at least the 25th. In our early “innocent’ years the pranks consisted mainly of soaping windows with the occasional “sticking” of auto horns. Sticking horns referred to both method and result. A stick was bent through the steering wheel so that it pressed on the horn button at the hub of the wheel thus causing the horn to blow and be “stuck” on. Since nobody locked their cars in those days they were easy prey. The fun in doing this was in the scheming and plotting the approach, execution and get-away of this “dirty deed”, then, from our hidden vantage, watching the irate offended party come out of his house to fix it cursing us brats. And brats we were….!!

Kenny Wyatt’s Golden Oldies:

When the fuse boxes were on the front porches of houses, kids would run up and pull the main switch.

They would gather the garden furniture and pile it against the door.

Once they stole a garden hose from Chet Bartel’s house and connected it at teacher Claude Sipe’s house, propped up the nozzle and knocked on the door. When Sipe answered the door they turned on the water and soaked him. (Now that was mean…..!!!)

Wayne Kelly’s folk lore:
Stories of manure put on L.E. Rogers’ porch and covered by newspaper, leaves, or in a paper bag then set on fire abound. I even heard this one when I was a kid. Maybe it’s an urban legend but maybe it’s true. I imagine somebody had to try it at least once. Here’s one story sent to me by Wayne Kelly: “L.E. Rogers, principal at KHS for many years, was a man students either feared or loved. “Eagle Beak,” as he was sometimes called, was a disciplinarian and being sent to the school office was something to be avoided. At Halloween he was often the target of pranksters. One year horse manure was wrapped in a newspaper, which was placed on the front porch of Rogers’ home and set afire. Of course the attempt to “stomp out” the blaze was as messy as one might imagine.”

“Halloween was a unique time in Knightstown. Trick or treating was common, but in most instances tricking involved nothing more than a bit of soap on house or auto windows. But that was not always the case. My father laughed (but denied participating) in a prank in the early 1930s in which a bunch of boys led a cow up the steps of the old school house to the tower where Belvin Durham used to toll the bells signifying the beginning of school. Reportedly, it took a great deal of coaxing to get “Bessie” out of the tower.”

Stories of the Big Kids – Some Serious Halloweening….

While us little kids were having wonderful adventures sticking horns and soaping windows the older boys were getting down to some serious Halloweening. Most of their efforts centered on two objectives. One was the tipping over of every outhouse within a 10 mile radius of the town square. The other, and the higher calling of the two, was to confound, embarrass and in all ways get the best of a game of cat and mouse with the town constable, Guy Fausset. Fausset wasn’t really a bad guy, no pun intended, but the kids sure gave him a hard time. He seemed to be the focus of most of the older kids scheming and plotting of dirty tricks at Halloween.

Curfew ….

One example of this war of wills happened in ’53 or ’54. Ed Fort of the class of ’55 told me the story of how Fausset and the town board imposed a 10 o’clock curfew for all minors for the Halloween season and issued dire warnings that pranks would be punished severely . The signal for the beginning of the curfew each night was the ringing of the bell on top of the old Town Hall on Franklin Street. The staircase to the bell was separate from the rest of the building and was accessed only via a set of huge oak doors at the bottom. Ed said that one night when Fausset went up to ring the bell for the curfew he (Ed) and a bunch of fellow conspirators ran up and wired the doors shut from the outside. Then they hid in some bushes by the old Standard Station across the street, where Ronnie “Bone” Elliot was working that night pumping gas. Ed continued that, pretty soon after the bell stopped ringing they saw the doors go rattle, rattle, rattle, then rattle, rattle, rattle…. Then boom, boom, boom, rattle, rattle, rattle. After a few minutes they saw Fausset at an upstairs window that had been painted shut for years struggling to get it open. With a yeoman’s effort he finally got it open and was heard crying, Ronald….. Ronald…… Ronald,,,,,, trying to get Elliot’s attention. This went on for about 10 minutes until there were no cars to service and Ronnie could ignore him no longer and had to go unwire the doors.

The old Town Hall where the “lock-up” took place.

The next night the whole gang of kids “happened” to be lolling around the Standard Station when Fausset came to ring the bell at 10. He walked over to them and said, now I know some of you guys were in on that thing last night and I want to tell you that I could have knocked those doors off the hinges but I didn’t want to destroy town property. That got a good laugh because those doors are 12 feet high and almost 3 inches thick of solid oak.

In addition to the fun but relatively commonplace tipping over of outhouses some of the pranks got pretty elaborate. Seems that Marshal Fausset had a trailer that he kept behind his house next to the alley. Kids would make sure he was busy in another part of town and “borrow” the trailer to execute a well planned assault on a targeted outhouse. With the Marshal’s own trailer a gang of kids would load the chosen privy on the trailer and haul it to some prominent place in town, like the town square, so that the good citizens of Knightstown could behold it in all its malodorous glory until arrangements could be made to return it to its poor toilet deprived owner. Another place of honor where I’ve heard an outhouse was deposited was immediately in front of the High School doors. Lain on it’s side it completely blocked the front entrance to the building so I was told.

I have a dim memory of an outhouse hanging about 20 feet up the flagpole in front of school one crisp October morning. I’m not sure I didn’t imagine it since I can’t get any collaboration.

Forey Wyatt’s Story: The Great Privy Fire ….
Forey Wyatt told me that he was given an outhouse by a guy over by Greenfield so had to think about how to make best use of it. After some deliberation he and his partners in crime decided that since the wood was very old and dry it would probably burn pretty well and make a nice bonfire for the town folk to enjoy. They collected the outhouse, then after dark hauled it up to the elevated Pennsylvania Railroad tracks and on an unused siding set it ablaze. This was a good high vantage point that could be seen by most of the people on the south side of town with no structures nearby to possibly catch fire.

Forey said that it they had barely gotten the fire going and made their get-away before the fire alarm siren atop the old town hall started to blow. It was erroneously reported that one of the grain elevators south of the tracks was on fire so great haste was made to get to the scene and the word went out all over town. He said it was burning nicely by the time the fire truck driver finally figured out where the fire was and, after a couple of dead ends, found the drive up to the tracks. A large crowd had gathered thinking it was another elevator on fire but all they got to witness was an old crapper burning, but brightly it did burn….. I think most of the town’s folks probably enjoyed a little Halloween entertainment.

The Last Outhouse ….
Ed Fort told me the story of the last outhouse. There was a guy named Johnson who lived next to the Big 4 tracks on Pine. He had the last, or one of the last, functioning outhouses in Knightstown. Mr. Johnson was heard to say that it was impossible to tip his privy over and even if someone tried they would be shot in the process. It was located so that one side was very near a large shed and thus it couldn’t be tipped that way. On the other sides he had rigged thick, well anchored wire so the whole thing was trussed up like a TV tower. He also had a couple of outside lights which illuminated the whole area. All he lacked was some barbed wire and Doberman guard dogs.

Seems that one very dark night in late October a group of between 25 and 30 boys set out on the assault. This was a carefully planned mission and they were well equipped with a couple of BB guns and a large cable cutter borrowed from Rex Maddox who worked for the phone company. They shot out the lights with the BB guns then very quickly cut the guy wires on two sides, gave a shove and presto the last outhouse was tipped. It’s a little sad, the end of an era. By the time I got to the prime privy tipping age there just weren’t any left. What a shame..!!! Although, I guess one of my buddies did get to take part in the very last privy assault. Dick Flack told me he was in on it and got one leg in the stuff. He said he had a heck of a time washing it off enough to go home. I guess that was one of the hazards of the sport and it happened a lot. I’ve heard from several sources that Bill Brosius fell in once but can’t confirm it.

The Restoration Committee ….

Sometimes, after a night of outhouse tipping and/or moving, a “committee” would be formed the next morning to restore these facilities to their former positions and functionality. Membership of the “Set ‘Em Back Up Brigade” was (not so) randomly chosen by the Town Marshal and School Superintendent (L.E. Rogers) from among the able-bodied high school boys who were dragged from class to perform these services all the while protesting their innocents. (They probably got the guilty parties 90 percent of the time.)

Here’s what Wayne Kelly (class of ’52) said about it: “I recall one instance when the town marshal visited the KHS study hall recruiting young men to “tip up” the outhouses they purportedly had toppled the night before.”

The Girls ….
The girls didn’t usually take part in the more outrageous pranks at Halloween but they did get up to some mischief. Here’s a story told by Rosalee Womack Miller

Times sure were different back then. The Halloween pranks went beyond mischievous but they weren’t malicious. Admittedly, there was some destruction of property but it was usually easily restored. When the first of November came around the kids in Knightstown went back to being their obedient, hard working, and considerate selves. Nowadays some of the pranks like we did back then would probably bring out Homeland Security SWAT teams in flack jackets and helmets. Ah for the good old days…!!!