Halloween Comes to the WV School for the Deaf

Today's Throwback Thursday photograph was found at the West Virginia State Archives website as part of its Picture of the Week feature!  According to the description given, this festively dressed group is celebrating a Halloween party at the West Virginia School for the Deaf, some time during the 1960's.

The WV Schools for the Deaf and Blind are still in existence today and are located on a historic campus in Romney, Hampshire County. Dating back to 1870, the first class consisted of 25 deaf and 5 blind students.  And, I'm pleased to report that 50+ years later, the schools are still embracing the fun and whimsy of Halloween!  The photo below is of Ms. Emerick-Engle's 2016-2017 5th grade class at the WV School for the Blind!

Looking for MORE historic West Virginia Halloween photographs?  Check out my post, HALLOWEEN IN WEST VIRGINIA! 

Halloween in West Virginia

I have recently discovered and fallen in love with the West Virginia History on View website, which is a HUGE database of over 49,000 historical images from all over the Mountain State.  You could spend hours browsing this site and finding images you've never seen anywhere else.  One excellent feature of the site is the option to search by keyword, and guess which keyword I tried?  Yup.  Halloween!

This first one's description is listed as Children Celebrating Halloween in Costume (ca. 1900-1910)

This next one features the Storer College Choir performing in Harpers Ferry.  The college was West Virginia's first African-American college, operating from 1865 to 1955. 

I love this next scene of a Halloween Party at West Virginia State University (1960-1970).  It doesn't seem like the girls are having too much fun, lol. 

Staying on the campus of West Virginia University, this next image looks pretty horrifying!  However, the description assures us that this is just a Halloween effigy hanging from Glennlock Hall around 1966.

The final photo is actually pretty interesting.  It seems to be an advertisement for an event at Morgantown's Warner Theater.  It's description simply states 'Fanny Foley, Morgantown, W.Va. (1920).'  The Warner Theater (which is haunted by the way!) didn't open until 1931, so I'm going to guess that this photo is closer to that date.  As for Fanny Foley, she may look somewhat like a man in drag in this picture, but Fanny Foley Herself was a popular 1931 movie starring Edna May Olliver as a woman attempting to revive her vaudeville career.