Vintage Halloween Collection Leads To A Yard Of Fright In A Season Of Fun For Des Moines Couple

DES MOINES, IA -- Bridgett and Mike Gamm have turned an interest in vintage Halloween decor into a passion for the season that has filled their home and now spills into their yard. In their neighborhood, when kids refer to the Halloween house, everyone knows who they mean.

The couple moved into their home near Grand View University in 2010 and said the decorating outdoors was sparse at first. And that meant few trick or treaters on Beggars' Night. The Gamms decided then to make the following year better.

"That first Halloween we started with just a coffin,"Bridgett said.

"And every year it's gotten bigger and bigger," Mike added. "The next year we had a lot of this stuff in the yard, and we had more trick or treaters."

Added Bridgett: "We had to return to the store four times to keep getting more candy."

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The eerie ghouls and creepy zombies have been like magnets beckoning brave children and their curious parents to the home. In the past few years it's been normal to get anywhere from 150 to 200 kids, resulting in a line that is sometimes two dozen deep, Mike said. Many people stay quite a while to look at every item in the display, while some kids succumb to fright and retreat as soon as possible.

"We measure our success by how many criers we have,"Mike laughed.

Bridgett said her collection of vintage Halloween memorabilia indoors provided a natural segue for decorating outdoors with a similar old-school theme she calls "a DIY-ers Halloween." She searches for old items she can display together to create a unique scene. This year, she created a kitchen diorama in one area of the yard, focusing on details like a gooey eyeball casserole and roasted dismembered hands coming out of the vintage oven while next to it a hungry zombie child sneaks a snack of chilled fingers from the antique icebox.

In the background is a table for two -- complete with a bone candelabra and blood-splattered tablecloth -- that will make a good spot for Halloween photos for families, she noted.

Bridgett said a big part of the fun in decorating is seeing what the result will be when she blends regular vintage items -- an old saw, a rusty wagon or a battered typewriter, for example -- to create a more realistic visual.

"That's what I like; anything can be a decoration if it's rusty and crusty and gross," she said.

The Gamms like to have all their creepy characters in place so the look is complete by October 1, but Bridgett said there is a lot of fine-tuning and adding early in the month.

With all the different vintage pieces, motion-activated gadgets and the effect of lights and fog, Bridgett said she still is partial to the full-size coffin, because that's how the decorating outdoors all got started. A girl zombie in a high chair -- twice stolen and replaced -- is another favorite piece.

Mike said if he has a favorite component it would be the pumpkin head he displays on the house over the front entry, because it rises above the whole display and draws the eye upwards. "But I like it all," he said. "I like the full effect when it's all going with the lights and fog and sounds. It's not a professional haunted house, but it gives that feeling."

As much as the couple enjoys all things Halloween, they said they don't get out to take in many other displays or area haunted houses.

"Mostly we're babysitting this," Mike said, gesturing to the yard. "In October, we really don't go anywhere."

Pressed Paper Pulp Jack-o-Lanterns

The Gamms have only October to enjoy the outdoor decorations, but inside some of Bridgett's favorite vintage pieces are on display year round. Some of her favorite items are the most delicate in her collection: pressed paper, or pulp, jack-o-lanterns and cat's heads that were made in the 1920's, '30s and '40s.

She said many were exported from Germany, where the holiday wasn't even celebrated in that era.

"Halloween is hard to find with old things because back in the day everything was meant to be thrown away," she said of the fragile papier-mache-type buckets and masks and the knick knacks made of wax that were designed as candles and often didn't survive years of storage without air conditioning.

She looks for items online and in vintage specialty shops to add to her collection, but she isn't shopping for a particular time period, but just what has a worn, rustic appearance.

"If it looks like it's got a lot of dings on it, I know it's old," she said.

Photos: (Slideshow) Mike and Bridgett Gamm like to give a vintage look to their Halloween display and create scenes that fill their yard. (Above) Jack-o-lanterns and a cat's head made from pressed paper and a collection of candles and other knick knacks of wax are among the fragile vintage items more than 70 years old that Bridgett Gamm collects./Melissa Myers, Des Moines Patch