Ghost of Frankenstein’s Monster Looms Large in My Halloween Memories

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When Mary Shelley crafted her 1818 horror story about a mad scientist named Dr. Frankenstein digging up corpses and welding body parts together with metal braces to bring the dead back to life she created a fictional figure that would be a favorite Halloween character for more than 200 years.

A case in point, a life-sized statue of an animated Dr. Frankenstein’s monster is on display at First State Community Bank, 302 West St. Louis Street, compliments of local fantasy guru Pat Dubuque, along with an equally animated witch.

As it happens, I have a Halloween history with the craft of welding body parts together that I came by at the 2002 Pacific Spookfest in City Park. And Dr. Frankenstein and his monster were on hand for the adventure.

The Halloween craze that we celebrate each year in Pacific got its start when Chamber of Commerce president John Heger created Spookfest around the City Park circle to offer families a safe trick-or-treat experience. And it was a doozy.

Chamber members created booths that defied the imagination. Little trick-or-treaters and their families trekked through haunted houses, a cemetery with open graves, a headless horseman, and tents filled with smoke and eerie sounds.

Klieg lights slashed across the sky like the premier of a big budget movie. In fact, the ideal Halloween movie scene – a yellow brick road that led to the Land of Oz with Dorothy, Toto, the tin man, the scare crow and cowardly lion – was the first booth to greet visitors as they made their way from the parking lot to the park’s inner circle. 

In the center of the circle, a swoosh of fire from a hot air balloon basket periodically shot into the sky. High winds made it unsafe to fill the balloon.

A sign that led to the free hayride provided by my husband Bob Masson was posted next to the Pacific Sports Club concession stand. At the last minute a twenty-foot high blue gorilla was inflated to tower above the visitors with John pulling at the guy wires to keep it erect.

But the show stopper was the real live Dr. Frankenstein at work in his laboratory. Visitors had to slide down a twelve-foot black tunnel to get into the laboratory, then weave past discarded body parts and pass within arms reach of the life-sized monster that was held together with adjustable metal braces, pins sticking through the oversized bandages, all connected by a big black metal rod. He lay partially covered on the hospital gurney as the panel of electrical lights and tubes flashed and crackled overhead. When the lights flashed the creature trembled and turned toward the visitors.

More than 2,000 people were said to have attended.

I have to tell you … I did not see any of the crowds first hand. At about 4:45 p.m. I tipped over the straw bail I was standing on, working on a booth, fell and crushed my wrist. Helen Preiss drove me to the hospital and I spent the evening and the night at St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Washington getting my wrist reconstructed. 

Our grandson Joey Cotham stayed at the park to work “The Moving Wall” he had created for The Missourian booth. Our Huffstutler grandkids, Tim, Jenifer. Amy and Matt filled in to guide visitors through the booth. Helen and I were supposed to do that part. And Bob stayed to give free hayrides, also sponsored by The Missourian. This was originally planned for kids only. But the parents piled right on and Bob said our little Satoh tractor chugged right along.

 I wished I could have seen it.

I would not have been much help in our booth or on the hayrides. But I would have fit right in in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. To my dismay, when I awoke from the surgery at the hospital my wrist was affixed to a half-inch diameter steel rod that was tricked out with four metal posts that were screwed into the bones of my arm and hand to hold everything in place. I think this is how Dr. Frankenstein did it.

As much as I continue to admire John Heger’s ingenuity and what Spookfest (later Monsterfest) has done for Pacific, my memories of that year never quite escape the Frankenstein inspired metal contraption that I had to wear on my arm for the next eight weeks. It was monstrous.