Halloween Revisited

This week, we have a guest blogger--Robert Quarteroni from the Eckley Miners’ Village Museum Associates (not pictured here, or maybe he is).

“The Count” is a perennial favorite at the Halloween lantern tours

and has been entertaining visitors to Eckley for more than a decade

“On Halloween,” comedian Rodney Dangerfield once said, “parents sent out their kids looking like me.” No matter how true that statement, there are certainly a lot of strange-looking creatures and characters going bump in the night during the annual Halloween lantern tours at Eckley Miners’ Village.

The Grim Reaper, one of the tour guides, made sure everyone stayed in line

The spooky celebration of Halloween was held on three weekends this year at the living history museum that normally focuses on the daily life of the anthracite coal miner and his family. But there was nothing normal about these three October weekends and that allowed all the ghouls and goblins of the dark to establish residence in the Village. Every half hour or so a collection of happy-to-be-scared visitors were rounded up and led through the darkened streets of the Village, flashlights and lanterns in hand, to be treated to a wide variety of “spooktacular” entertainments.

Dr. Frankenstein is always an electrifying performer

Family-oriented chills and thrills were unearthed at spooky skits and entertainments ranging from the “Undead Wedding” and the “Arsenic and Old Lace Serial Killer” to “Dead Confederate Soldiers.” There was even a haunted head séance courtesy of the folks from the Hazleton Paranormal Society.

The performance by members of the Hazleton Paranormal Society was a head-and-shoulders favorite

All this was garnished with a cemetery, an undertaker and, of course, Frankenstein, the Grim Reaper and that perennial favorite, The Count, regaling onlookers with spooky tales. For the 1,800 folks who visited Eckley over the three weekends, it was a fun family way to spend our favorite spooky holiday. You just might say they had a devil of a time!

“The Undertakers” serenaded folks with some witchy music