Her own parents didn’t put much stock in Halloween, so a few days beforehand, Margot Cleary of Westhampton would raid her father’s closet for the same costume she’d worn the year before.
“I was always a hobo,” said Cleary, 69, recalling the Halloweens of her youth. “I was an only child, and it was not a big holiday in my house.”
When she became a mother, she was determined to do things differently.
“My kids were going to have costumes,” Cleary said, plain and simple.
Her costume-making tradition started around 1979, when she turned her sons Thomas, 3, and Peter, then 1 ½ , into Westhampton’s most adorable clowns.
In a picture of the boys taken that night, they’re wearing white face paint and colorful, puffy onesies topped with frilly white ruffs and can be seen picking through their trick-or-treating plunder.
“I’m not big on Halloween per se, I’m not one of those people who decorates,” explained Cleary. “They were just so cute.”
Over the past 40 years, Cleary, who worked as an editor at the Gazette for 35 years and retired in 2013, has sewed dozens of costumes for her three children, and later her five grandchildren — nearly every year since that first Halloween when she turned her sons into clowns.
Cleary recalls one year in the 1980s when she made an astronaut costume for her son Peter around the time he went to space camp in Alabama for the first time. The fancy silver suit featured authentic NASA patches, and was spiffy-er than one she’d seen in a store as inspiration. Another time, she made a Juicy Fruit gum pack from a cardboard box covered with high gloss yellow paper for her then-10-year-old daughter Jocelyn.
Then there was the year when she outfitted one son as a boxer and his sister as a butterfly — a witty take on Mohammad Ali’s legendary claim that he would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” in a 1964 underdog match against Sonny Liston, the reigning heavyweight champ.
She’s also recreated beloved pop-culture characters like Superman, Minnie Mouse and Raggedy Ann — complete with a matching homemade Raggedy Ann doll. One year, her three kids became a themed trio: Captain Hook, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. And in high school, her son Thomas wanted to be Elvis, so she made him the requisite white jumpsuit paired with copious gold chains.
It wasn’t until three years ago, when she saw her then 4-year-old grandson, William, try on the Superman costume she’d made for his father 40 years before that Cleary realized she’d created — and preserved — a portal to the past. Times had changed, her babies had grown into parents with kids of their own, but the tiny red cape and little red boots were exactly the same.
“Generations continue,” Cleary said. “It was very sweet to see. He was so excited to be in (his father’s Superman costume).”
Costume-making is a labor of love, says Cleary, who learned how to sew in a 7th grade home economics class. Initially, she worked from patterns she bought at the fabric store. But after a few decades of practice, she’s become somewhat of an expert — adapting a koala bear pattern into a Sonic the Hedgehog costume for her grandson, Carter, for example — and improvising the rest.
“It’s a lot easier these days,” Cleary said. She was sitting on a couch in the living room next to a few of her creations, and picked up a bright blue bowler hat from a Zootopia-inspired Judy Hopps bunny costume that her granddaughter, Ella, wore last year. Cleary sewed bunny ears onto the hat using buckram, a stiffening material, to keep them upright.
Just then, three of her five grandchildren — William, now 7, Carter, 12, and Ella, 10 — burst into the house with their mom, Morley Cleary.
“Oh, yes! The marshmallow man!” William exclaimed, running over to a Stay Puft outfit from Ghostbusters that he wore trick-or-treating a few years ago. In much of Westhampton, the houses are too spread out to go door-to-door, so kids gather at Hampshire Regional High School for a rag shag parade and communally-purchased candy.
This year, William and his sister, Ella, are going as zombies. They’re planning to bury their clothes underground for a few days to achieve an authentic, back-from-the-dead effect. Carter was a zombie last year (and, for the record, the one who came up with the idea to bury the clothes in the dirt), and this Halloween, he’s chosen a costume his aunt Jocelyn Cleary wore when she was in high school.
“Carter is wearing one of my greatest achievements,” said Cleary.
“The skunk!” Ella interjected.
Made of plush fabric with thick gloves, the suit includes a giant tail held aloft by a shoulder strap. In addition to being warm, the rugged skunk costume has stood up well to the decades.
“Costumes from stores are usually made from material that seems like it will disintegrate at the stroke of midnight. I’ve had (mine) for decades,” Cleary said.
The three grandchildren followed as she led the way down to the cellar. There, in a corner of the basement, hung a veritable costume archive, with dozens of outfits from years past on racks — including the vintage superman costume with its original tights. On the floor were labeled plastic bins filled with additional costumes and sewing materials. Cleary’s already given boxes of costume-making materials to her daughter-in-law, Mary Cleary, who lives next door with two other granddaughters, 5-year-old Catherine and 3-year-old Anna. The materials are being put to good use. Last Halloween, Anna’s mom made her an apple costume, and turned Catherine into a pumpkin.
Cleary says costume-planning starts in the spring. But officially, Ella says they’re not supposed to lobby grandma until early fall.
“Grandpa said we’re not allowed to ask until September,” Ella said of Cleary’s husband of 46 years, Thomas Cleary Sr. That said, according to Thomas Cleary Jr., his kids start planning next year’s costumes the day after Halloween.
Margot typically starts sewing in September with “high-hopes of getting the costumes done early. That never happens,” she said. The process “takes hours and hours and hours.” Somehow, though, she always finishes on time, and has “never had to resort to going out and buying one.”
The kids dream up their ideas under the assumption that grandma can make anything.
“Although I don’t think they would verbalize it, I believe it makes our kids feel special that they have something unique that is created just for them,” Thomas Cleary Jr. said. Talking about costume ideas with classmates throughout the year helps his kids build friendships that hopefully will stay with them later in life, he explained. And by participating in Westhampton’s community Halloween celebration, “our kids see that they are important to the adults around them.”
As they do every year, the family will gather at grandma’s for pizza before heading to the parade.
“Grandpa tries to convince our kids that they should each save a Snickers bar for him,” Thomas Cleary Jr. added.
As her grandchildren get older, Margot Cleary suspects her costume-making days are numbered. But she says she’s not quite ready to give it up. In fact, she has at least one more costume on her current to-do list.
“I’m dressing up for Halloween this year for the first time ever as an adult.”
What will she be wearing at this year’s rag shag parade?
“It’s a secret,” Cleary said.
Northampton native Andy Castillo is a Gazette features reporter and photographer.