Among the sometimes odd items to be found in the archives of the Freeborn County Historical Museum is a shoe box filled with a collection of older postcards based on holidays and special occasions.

These cards are of the type with illustrations based on specific themes on one side and spaces on the other side for a message, the address of the recipient and a stamp. And in the era of a century or so ago, postage for mailing a postcard costing maybe a penny was just 1 cent, and for a foreign destination the postage cost was 2 cents.

These cards clearly indicate that folks used to send just a card instead of sending a card inside an envelope.

In the museum’s collection are postcards from the era of eight to 10 decades ago with themes based on New Year’s, Leap Year, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s (with obvious green colors predominating), Easter (the largest number of cards), patriotic themes, Thanksgiving, birthdays and even Halloween.

There are 20 postcards in this collection with this supposedly spooky day as the theme. However, on 17 of these cards the word is spelled Hallowe’en, as Halloween on two cards, and a goblin serves as the theme for the 20th card.

The word Hallowe’en is a contraction for the full name for this particular day. In earlier times the day before All Saint’s Day on Nov. 1 was known as All Hallows Eve (or Evening).

These older Halloween (or Hallowe’en) postcards clearly emphasize there was a somewhat different emphasis for the last day or evening of October.

Witches flying around on their jet-powered brooms, black cats and bats, the devil, and pumpkins galore are some of the images shown on these postcards. On several cards are illustrations of a flying creature associated with the strange sounds and sights of spooky dark nights — the owl.

The only indication of costumes a century or so ago are the pointed hats and cloaks worn by the witches.

One of the older postcards in the museum’s archives depicts a Halloween custom now nearly forgotten. This was called apple-bobbing. The apples were floated in a tub of water. Then the challenge for the participants was to use their teeth only to catch and remove the apples. The use of hands was not allowed.

Another now overly popular Halloween custom, trick-or-treat, is a more recent American addition to this ancient celebration and isn’t featured on any of the 20 older postcards in the museum’s collection.