Halloween traditions bring out family togetherness in oddest of ways

Kansans love scary traditions.

For one Sedgwick County family, decorating their house and yard is a four-decade tradition.

For another family, a father-daughter duo have made decorating their front yard a bonding experience while giving a nod to Hollywood’s scariest vintage movies.

And for one northeast Kansas town, the annual Halloween parade, now in its 100th year, is considered the nation’s oldest Halloween parade and celebration.

“We have the longest continual parade, that is true,” said Beth Mikita, chairman of this year’s Hiawatha Halloween Frolic.

Starting at 2 p.m. Friday, Hiawatha will celebrate with two parades, costume contests, a Halloween queen contest and treats for all who attend the celebration. A children’s parade is expected to draw 200 participants. The grand parade at 7:30 p.m. is expected to draw more than 800 participants and is capped off with fireworks.

The Halloween custom of dressing up like ghosts and witches was first brought to America in the 1840s by Irish immigrants. Trick-or-treating may go back to ninth-century Europe. By the late 19th century, Halloween was known as a night of destruction throughout the United States. In Kansas, newspapers were filled with stories of tricks played by young people on Halloween night.

Accounts of delivery wagons set on fire or people being seriously injured when their horses ran into machinery placed on dark roads by pranksters were common.

Wichita attempted to control Halloween pranks in 1899 by threatening miscreants with jail.

In 1913, Mrs. John Krebs of Hiawatha in northeastern Kansas got fed up with all the high jinks. She was tired of neighborhood children destroying her flower beds.

The first year, Krebs invited the children into her house for candy and treats, reasoning that if she treated them kindly, they’d destroy less property.

The second year, she got them in costumes.

Before long, communities throughout the nation were observing Halloween as a community-oriented event.

Ghoulish yards, houses

Jane Barton has decorated her family’s home for 40 years – first when the Barton family lived in Wichita on Green Street and now at 813 Linden Lane in Derby.

“For us, it is a Halloween tradition,” Barton wrote in an e-mail. “Both of my children, who are adults now, help with the decorating of the outside of the house.”

There is a cemetery with more than 20 gravestones, an iron fence and lights around the yard.

“Parents come with their small children because it is a fun Halloween house. Not too scary,” she said. “My daughter and I dress like nice witches and my son makes the perfect Dracula.”

Barton, 62, considers Halloween a holiday for children.

“My dad loved Halloween and he immersed us into it,” she said.

In west Wichita, Randy and Miranda Baty have made an annual tradition of decorating their yard with scary things.

The family lives at 409 N. Cardington, near Central and 119th Street West.

There is lighting, music, fog machines, the Grim Reaper, 220 feet of picket fence and zombies that crawl across the ground.

“When my daughter was young, we liked to watch old movies together,” Randy Baty said. Together, they became fans of horror movies.

Miranda, now 13, loves to watch people’s reactions as they see the yard displays.

“A lot of times they will scream, run or stand in awe of all the stuff we have,” she said.

In the past few years, they have incorporated the help of actors.

“Halloween is my favorite holiday,” Miranda Baty said. “It is something me and my dad get to do together.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2014 at 5:28 PM with the headline "Halloween traditions bring out family togetherness in oddest of ways."