By Marlene Samuels

It’s October once more, and last week, I was visually assaulted by Halloween decorations at my local “big-box-store”. The moment I walked in, memories of my especially unsettling and very awkward first ever American Halloween also assaulted me.

The reality: Halloween hardly qualifies as a holiday in the truest sense of the term, but I did participate in all Halloween-associated activities when my two sons were young, despite my utter dislike for Halloween-associated events. I still loathe Halloween!

 In Montreal, Canada, where I lived in the 1950s and ’60s, kids participated in our version of American Halloween. The difference? We didn’t focus upon collecting candy, dressing up in costumes, or resorting to questionable “tricks” when treats failed to materialize. Kids in my poor immigrant neighborhood anticipated the approach of Beggars’ Night. And like Halloween in the USA, October 31 was the date. We dressed in rags, smeared our faces with grease and coal dust, grabbed paper sacks from under kitchen sinks, and strolled the neighborhood for two hours, from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., when all “beggars” were expected home for dinner.

Groups of four, five, sometimes as many as eight of us, descended upon our neighbors. No one was brave enough to knock on the door. Instead, we gathered in a huddle, multiple fists hammering on doors, and when a door was pulled open, we “beggars” began our performances. Hunching over improvised canes, we affected postures of imagined 18th-century London beggars. Thespians among us developed hand tremors or limps, distorted faces, and clawed hands while our chorus of young voices shouted, “Charity Please! Kind Sir, Kind Madam, have pity! Charity please!”

No “trick or treat” craziness for us. Some mothers sewed satchels with rope draw-strings from whatever shmatta (rag) was available, more preferable than paper bags that, when filled with booty of money and not candy, could tear.

Pennies and nickels clinked into bags that grew heavier as we wound through our four-square-block territory. Occasionally, deep-toned clinks suggested quarters or half-dollars, always reserved for older kids. The assumption among adults: little kids can’t tell the difference between coins, so give them pennies, nickels, and dimes.

When begging-time ended, we rushed home, eager for dinner but more eager to dump our sacks out onto the floor. Carefully, we counted our collections. “Kinder (children), you’ll make two equal piles, yes?” Mom said.“One you must save for your bank account, the other spend on candy or for narishkeiten (silly things), whatever you want, yes?”.

In May of the year, I could have enjoyed a Beggars’ Night of quarters, my parents moved us to the Chicago suburbs, and I began my new high school in September. Throughout October, incessant buzzing among my classmates swirled around my ears. “What are you going as?” They shouted in hallways and during lunch. October 31 grew closer. Now, endless chatter was about costumes, possible pranks that could be played without legal repercussions, and talk of parties. “Anyone know who’s having a Halloween party?” I hadn’t a clue what so much excitement was about, but I also knew that any party that was taking place surely wouldn’t include me. Finally, the year’s second most important event arrived, the first I’d learned was school’s last day.

Our first Halloween in our new country initially felt as though it was a targeted bad joke. Halloween, the day children all across our land anticipated with great excitement, had even infiltrated schools. Most children showed ready for masquerade while adults felt liberated to behave like lunatics.

Night was settling upon our neighborhood. Clumping sounds of young children’s feet and parents’ voices could be heard on the street in front of our apartment above the United States Post Office. Meantime, waves of high-schoolers’ loud voices wafted up from the park across the street. My mother, brother, and I ran to the window for a look. Hordes of various-shaped and sized children, parents in tow, plodded across the village green while others stumbled along sidewalks carrying orange buckets or shopping bags. Mom’s face contorted into worry. Dad set aside reading his Chicago Jewish Star to look for himself.

Seconds later, what sounded like hooves thundered up the hallway stairs leading to our apartment. Dad, who’d been relaxing with rolled-up sleeves, walked to the door, nudging us aside to open it. “Trick or treat!” Bellowed a teenage Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill, Marlena Dietrich, and Hitler in unison.

In Yiddish, Mom said to Dad, “Meyer, you need to give them coins like in Montreal.” He reached into his pocket to extract a handful of change. I cowered behind the door, perspiring with embarrassment, but my brother had gone into hiding in his room the second he heard voices that sounded like older children ascending our stairs. We prayed we wouldn’t see any of our classmates.

“Mom,” I muttered in Yiddish, “don’t give money! You’re supposed to give candy. This is America and they don’t need your money!”

One of the older boys, the tallest among them with a deep man-voice — Stalin, I think he was, noticed my father’s outstretched arm, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and the tattooed numbers and Star of David. In an instant, Stalin began apologizing profusely, “Sir, I’m so terribly sorry!” He said to Dad, his voice catching in his throat. “Please forgive us!” Dad looked unsure what that was about, and then Churchill and Hitler, Mussolini, and Marlena Dietrich followed suit. Stalin leaned toward his comrades, whispering, The next moment, they backed out the door and turned to descend the stairs on tiptoes out into the street.

When he heard the door close, my brother came out of hiding and again, went to look onto the street. There, we saw a huddle of costumed kids, chattering for a very long time. Moments later, a group of parents and their costumed children joined the huddle.

For the remainder of our first Halloween in our new country, our staircase remained spookily silent.

© Marlene Samuels 2025

Marlene holds a Ph.D., from University of Chicago. A research sociologist by training, she writes creative non-fiction by preference. Currently, she is completing her book entitled Ask Mr. Hitler: A Memoir Told In Short Story.  She is coauthor of The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, and author of When Digital Isn’t Real: Fact-Finding Off-Line for Serious Writers. Her essays and stories have been published widely in anthologies, journals, and online.  (www.marlenesamuels.com)