{"id":30751,"date":"2012-10-29T07:57:42","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T12:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=30751"},"modified":"2012-10-30T06:35:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:35:17","slug":"local-halloween-creatures-make-comeback-after-20-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/10\/29\/local-halloween-creatures-make-comeback-after-20-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Halloween ‘creatures’ make comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Judy Geary (in blue hoodie) with a collection of her Halloween costumes. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year\u2019s Harvest Moon Festival downtown included some great memories for the many local residents who remember seeing (or being) one of Judy Geary\u2019s Halloween \u201ccreatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

With some good-natured prodding from Larry Mengerink of Mengerink\u2019s Source for Sports, Geary refurbished a number of the amazing costumes she began making more than four decades ago for family Halloween celebrations.<\/p>\n

Geary began making her unique Halloween creations in 1963 when she was still a teenager. Suffice it to say that the Geary family was big on Halloween, with the family residence on Keplar Street festooned with spooky decorations that included a giant spider operated by ropes that crawled back and forth on the roof of the home.<\/p>\n

The celebration, at its peak, included 100 people and 55 unique creature costumes created by Geary, with much of the hand sewing work done by her mother, Mary, while her father, Floyd, provided enthusiasm and moral support. \u201cHe was a huge part of it,\u201d Geary said of her dad, who died in 1993. The big Halloween celebration ended a year later, in 1994.<\/p>\n

The retired banking employee credited her parents for giving her the support to do the costumes, as well as many other creative endeavors. \u201cThey allowed me to do things that most people\u2019s parents wouldn\u2019t allow their kids to do,\u201d Geary said.<\/p>\n

The Geary Halloween events were, to all intents, performance art, as we know it today, with Geary providing the often scary and sometimes beautiful costumes (and occasionally both) and local children and adults performing inside them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Judy Geary makes some last-minute repairs to one of her costumes. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Creating the costumes was a multi-step process, Geary said, noting that she would get an idea for a costume and then gather items that would be used to create it \u2013 something that could take a couple of years.<\/p>\n

The underpinnings for the costumes were old, damaged PAL football uniforms — shoulder pads, etc. — provided by Mengerink over the years, while Geary used all kinds of items to finish them off, using upside down tomato kegs for the taller costumes, while decorating them with worms from the sporting goods department and other items she found in local stores.<\/p>\n

But after the costumes were \u201cbuilt,\u201d it was up to the amateur actors inside to complete the process. \u201cI build them the best I can; I give them (the actors) the best I\u2019ve got for them to work with and they bring the rest of it to life,\u201d Geary said. \u201cI can walk out through it (the celebration) and it\u2019s not mine anymore; it belongs to the people who come and the people who play (the creatures).\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Mengerink who first brought up the idea of bringing out some of the costumes again for people to enjoy.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarry talked to me last year about doing it, but costume pieces and parts were strewn all over then and I didn\u2019t have the time to get things back together,\u201d Geary noted. Although she spends much of her time caring for a myriad of animals she has adopted over the years, Geary said she told Mengerink she would work on getting costumes ready for this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI owe him big time,\u201d Geary said of Mengerink\u2019s providing items for the costumes, adding that she thought she would only get five or six costumes ready, but ended up with around 15, and a number of people who volunteered to get back in them to reprise their former \u201croles\u201d or create new ones.<\/p>\n

Mengerink said seeing the costumes again brought back good memories for him and for those who used to don them during the Geary Halloween celebrations. \u201cI knew everyone would enjoy them,\u201d Mengerink said, adding that many people said they came downtown just to see the costumes. \u201cI can\u2019t thank her enough for doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, while Geary admits she enjoyed seeing the costumes used again, it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess whether they\u2019ll be back for next year\u2019s downtown Harvest Moon Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not doing it for downtown development, I\u2019m not pushing things,\u201d she said. \u201cI want them to just do what they do for the fun of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor This year\u2019s Harvest Moon Festival downtown included some great memories for the many local residents who remember seeing (or being) one of Judy Geary\u2019s Halloween \u201ccreatures.\u201d With some good-natured prodding from Larry Mengerink of Mengerink\u2019s Source for Sports, Geary refurbished a number of the amazing costumes she began making more than four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 04:16:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}