The Halloween Event that Changed Venice.

The Halloween Event      
that Changed the Face of Venice forever                  (according to me―of course). 

If you are from Venice, or grew up in Santa Monica, Mar Vista, Culver City and parts nearby there is a great likely-hood that you’re pretty familiar with the famous Halloween haunted house tradition on Harding Avenue. Odds are: you might have been among the thousands of people who packed our street on one of those spooky Halloween nights to watch the shows put on by the Lennon family.

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It was a haunting portrayal that included Frankenstein, Dracula, a damsel in distress, along with eerie organ music played by a monster on the front balcony, drapes that blew from howling wind, flashes of lightening and peels of thunder.   Were you there?  Do you remember?

The Lennons were competitive, so I'm going to tell you the true story of how their famous Venice haunted house really began ―the single event that started it all. 

This was way back (early 60’s) before the long hair, before the Veloci-Rooster, before the alligator, before the Mexican tomato plants, before the Vietnam War protest and before landing on the moon and before painting Venice yellow.

Before all this... before the Ooze ... before the Ouija Board

...THERE was a time when good Catholics were not allowed to celebrate the Devil’s high holy-day of Halloween. It was our duty to avoid anything that smacked of demons and goblins, witches and ghost. Good Catholic parents celebrated All Saints Day instead. Kids dressed as saints and angels―sometimes even went begging for candy the day after Halloween.  It was awkward for everyone. This, however, is the true story of the watershed event that changed everything.

We lived across the street from the Lennons. The four oldest girls appeared on TV every week on the Lawrence Welk Show. 

How could our mom hope to compare to that?!
  
Her only hope was to hold fast to the long held tradition of sending her darling children out trick or treating as angels and saints. 

Year after year our mother, Joan Dahlin, held out as the last bastion of Catholic hope in the world―not giving in to the Devil's holiday by fighting back against the forces of darkness.

Year after year she spent endless nights sewing elaborate costumes that not even the Lennons could match (that's hard to image, but true)!  

Good for you Mrs. Dahlin -- We better than the Lennons.  

She sewed one costume for Tony (He was Saint Anthony - the patron saint of lost causes)

Then another costume for Karl (The first Pope-pictured to left) 

Then another  (Saint Christopher)             

And another   (Saint George the dragon slayer)

Then another. Year after year: satin embellishments, vestment undergarments, sewing… planning…dreaming and creating magnificent costumes with a special accessory for each one.

8 years of costumes ―8 years of sewing ―8 years of creative imagination―then a girl. Finally a girl. Ahhhhhhh―since she was the angel of the family, mom transformed her into an the cutest little angel you ever saw!

        Mary as a baby angel 

4 years later, she was old enough to be the Blessed Virgin Mary

9 years of costume making... then 10 years… then 11 years… and 12…and 13…and 14 years and now it was finally my turn.  I was 5 and was licking my chops in excited expectation of my elaborate Christian costume. This was a rite of passage―I would join the rest of the saints in trick and treating and be included in this special family tradition for the very first time.  

ME! Yes, me, I would join the saints. 

Then it happened 

Before I came along, mom invested a lot of time into sewing, a lot of energy, and years of careful planning of those costumes. And now it was my turn, but was nervous that I didn’t see the usually buzz of activity. The bright light of my saintly mother's energetic buzz had dimmed.  

It was October 31 and I eagerly tugged on mom’s skirt-hem. Because there was an obvious lack of enterprise I nervously asked about my costume. Maybe she had spent many nights creating me something special while I was sleeping―I hoped against hope.

Calmly leading me down a hall to a room that had been piled full of stuff, she pointed to the corner of a room and told me to climb toward an old, musty-smelling steamer-trunk that had been buried.

JOY! A treasure hunt, this was even more exciting. Opening it, she instructed me to pull out the old mink stoles that had been placed there years before. 

These smelly mink stoles still had the little paws and heads with tiny glass eyes that ominously stared at you. Don’t ask me why but ladies had considered these dead animals very elegant in their day for some reason. 

ANYWAY…My mother placed the hideous thing over my shoulders and said, “There.”

I didn’t get it “There… what?”  I said stuttering in disbelief, asking what saint I was supposed to be.

She said, “This will make you Saint John the Baptist, of course.”

I was confused by the furs, knowing that John the Baptist wore camel skins. Biting my lip. I held back my initial disappointment holding out whatever glimmer of hope for the really cool accessory like all the other kids had―at least. 

 With pleading eyes, I asked, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well…am I…am I going to get a cool thing to hold like all the other guys?”

“Follow me downstairs” she said without skipping a beat.

Taking a paper plate, she stuck a toothpick through the center of it and then perched the head from one of my sister’s dolls on top of the toothpick. 

To top it off she glopped ketchup around the beheaded doll’s neck.

 

More confused than with the furs, I had no idea how holding a paper plate with a decapitated doll-head made me John the Baptist.

Being "Swedish Strong" I fought back tears and asked her to explain.

“Because, he had his head cut off!” She said lifting an eyebrow as though that explained everything to a confused five-year-old.

That was the end of our conversation. Instead of looking like a saint, I walked outside in bare feet with two dead animals over my shoulders, holding a paper plate with a bloody head. The shocked neighbors thought I was a child werewolf from some horror movie.  Wolf-Boy!

The grouch nextdoor called the police. The nuns around the corner fainted. My oldest brother was jealous that I got to Trick or Treat as the spawn of Charles Manson while he, at 14, had to be Saint Anthony.        

As it turns out―I won! 

The older boys wanted to have costumes as scary as mine next year. They wanted to be goblins and ghost, and if possible, make the nuns faint!

(Pictured: Getting pinched from behind - look at the excitement in the older boy's faces).

This was the watershed event. I think (as least the way I imagineer the story), that when I went by the Lennon house, Mr. Lennon was waiting on the porch to scare the kids and I think I scared him. 

When the the rest of the family saw my inglorious costume―the bloody son of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre it was right there-and-then that they decided that someday they would put on a haunted mansion show to the thrill spectators for the next 20 years–on every all-hallows-eve  (a tradition that began in 1970). 

Actually Video Footage of transforming the house on Halloween 

Whenever I tell this story―my mother shall be immortalized as the one who changed Venice by inspiring those resourceful and imaginative Lennons (at least this is the way I tell the story).

Thank you Mrs. D

P.S. Did I say that I won? YES!

(Picture of Lennons on the gridiron: by Donny Blaser). 

(*Picture of makeup at Lennon house by Kathy Daris Facebook). 
(opening and closing pictures credit: Joey Lennon) 

If you want to hear me tell the story click here.