For 14-year-old Helen Weld, Halloween in 1884 meant visiting a local bowling alley with friends where she bobbed for apples and saw her future husband’s initials (F.G.L.) in a mirror. Unfortunately, readers of Helen’s diary are left wondering if this prediction came true since the volume ends the following year.
Helen’s Diary
Friday – Halloween
It poured, so, as I had no waterproof, I did not go to school. I worked and fussed about the house till Bun came and then we plad battledore and billiards. At six thirty we went to a small party at Bowditch’s. Had tea immediately. Dolly & Langdon & Lucy, Tom, Mr Fred B. and I sat at one table (3). After tea we went to the bowling alley where we tried all sorts of tricks. Bobbing for apples and sitting before a looking glass to see your future husband learning his initials (F. G. L.) Grabbing burning fruit out of a pan, etc. till after ten There were about sixteen young folks…
Helen Weld, 1884
Divination games using common household items to predict future happiness, prosperity, and most importantly love were popular in the Victorian era, especially with young women like Helen. Bobbing for apples is still familiar to us now, but do we know the significance of the game? According to Victorian tradition, the first person to successfully grab an apple with his or her teeth would be the first to marry, and the first name spoken after the grab would be the lucky spouse. Apples were also pared in the hope that the peels would form the initials of future spouses after being thrown over shoulders.
Besides predicting marriage and spouses, apples also foretold happiness if thrown through a horseshoe, as directed in Sadie Josephine Dawson’s party games commonplace book of 1906. Apparently, Halloween celebrations and divination games had increased in number and specificity since Helen Weld’s time. Over the course of thirty pages, Sadie records a variety of games using not only apples but also pumpkins, raisins, candles, and needles and thread to foretell the future. She also includes party invitation verses and instructions, fortune sayings, and conundrums or riddles. One listed conundrum is “What nation produces the most marriages? Fa[s]cination.”
Pumpkin Game
Most likey circa 1900-1920, Grossman Collection, Winterthur Library.
Halloween games became big business in the early 1900s as evidenced by this printed pumpkin fortune-telling example. Although the saying hints at either “bright or black” futures, the twelve fortunes on the reverse are all bright ones, such as these two:
“Dame Fortune guides you night and day,
Your stars are pointing true;
Before a month has passed away
Great joy will come to you.”
“Your wedding month is June,
When flowers bloom their best,
And birds all sing a tune
Of sweethearts in their nest.”
May this Halloween bring you all good fortunes.
The Winterthur Library is filled with treasures such as these and offers programs throughout the year, including the Off the Shelf series spotlighting the Library’s collections of rare books, archives, and manuscripts. Join us for a Library Research Open House on October 19, and stop by to see the exhibition Winterthur Library Treasures.
In celebration of the season, we have reposted this blog post written by Jeanne Solensky, formerly the Andrew W. Mellon Librarian for The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera at the Winterthur Library, now Librarian of the Memorial Libraries at Historic Deerfield