There’s a new graveyard in Homewood on Marshfield Avenue, in front of the home of the O’Malley family. The deceased? Mitchell’s Ice Cream, Al’s Deli and a host of other shuttered local businesses from years past.
“We wanted to make it kind of celebrate Homewood,” John O’Malley said. “It’s not supposed to be mean-spirited at all, but more, you know, nostalgic. And then we started talking to neighbors and friends, and everyone started bringing up different places they remembered.”
The winners of Homewood’s annual Haunted Homewood Halloween decorating contest were announced Tuesday. Residents could enter their houses in any of three categories: Scariest, Child Friendly and Most Creative.
The O’Malley display, a graveyard of closed Homewood businesses, won Most Creative. The freshest grave is that of Walt’s Food Center, which closed last week. Each gravestone has the business’s name and date of ‘death.’
“We basically pulled together a bunch of suggestions from the neighborhood, especially old Homewood folks who’ve been around for a long time,” John O’Malley said.
Twenty-eight houses participated in this year’s competition. Homewood’s communications manager, Antonia Steinmiller, said seven houses entered for the Scariest category, six entered for Child Friendly, and more than half of all entrants entered for Most Creative, with 15.
“This contest invites community members from Homewood, but also people from the surrounding areas, to kind of visit Homewood and just to see all the awesome decorations that our residents do,” Steinmiller said. “I mean, there’s some houses that go all out.”
This year was the O’Malley family’s first time entering the competition. John, his wife Heather O’Malley, and their two children, Finley O’Malley, 10, and Ashlinn O’Malley, 8, all contributed to the display. The graveyard theme was Finley O’Malley’s idea, Heather O’Malley said, and the concept developed from there.
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John O’Malley said that the display has prompted a lot of nostalgic conversations with neighbors and other community members.
“People stop and they just start talking, they start talking about these memories at these different places. These are places they’d go after games, late practices, you know, as a family picking up dinner or whatever,” John O’Malley said. “Even though it’s a pretty simple idea, it just triggers a bunch of conversation, and so we’ve been talking to more neighbors, because they just pop in, like ‘Oh my goodness, I remember that place,’ and they start telling a story.”
“The ones who really are from here and know it, you hear them, like, ‘Oh, guys, oh, I forgot about Washington Mall!’ So it’s been really sweet,” Heather O’Malley said. “There was a man walking with a buddy, I guess, and their dog, and they were standing here for ten minutes reminiscing.”
The village of Homewood posted a map to Facebook for residents to walk around and view the decorations.
“Looks like 147,000, almost 148,000 views on that post, and 91% of those were from non-followers,” Steinmiller said. “So it’s been shared quite a few times, and people commenting are from other towns that are nearby, wanting to come to Homewood, you know, to see the decorations, and to drive by, to get into that sense of Halloween spirit.”
Jimmy Marinez, who lives on Ridge Road, won the Scariest category with a lawn full of life-size animatronic monsters that moved and growled. Marinez said that although he has been putting up elaborate Halloween displays for years, this was his first time participating in the contest.
“The last couple years I’ve been decorating, everyone has mentioned it to me,” Marinez said. “So then this year it was just, hey, might as well do it, since I have enough stuff out here.”
Marinez said his interest in putting up big Halloween displays was influenced by houses in the neighborhood he grew up in. His display spills out across the sidewalk, and includes a covered entrance with clawing skeletons and rattling chains.
“I totally wanted to have that experience with my kids,” Marinez said. “That’s why I started doing it, and then after my first year it just kind of exploded. Added more and more and more, and I always want to add more now.”
Tim Bouaphanh and Todd Opyt won the Child Friendly category with a bouncy, colorful display featuring inflatable rainbow unicorns. They’re hoping that their display and win will draw more trick-or-treaters to their home on Pierce Avenue.
“The neighborhood is a nice quiet neighborhood, it’s a great trick-or-treat neighborhood, they just don’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters,” Opyt said. “We were like, on a mission to get more trick-or-treaters into the neighborhood.”
After the winners were announced, Bouaphanh went out to stock up on more candy, just in case.
Bouaphanh said the two decorate their house for every holiday, from Valentine’s Day to Christmas. He said they always try to incorporate rainbows and unicorns into the display.
“I actually have an inflatable unicorn costume,” Bouaphanh said. “For Halloween last year, I would stand next to (the decorations), and the kids wouldn’t know that that’s me, and when they’d get closer I’d walk up to them. It would scare some of them, and some of them think it’s funny.”
Monica Papiez also entered in the Child Friendly category. Papiez said she’s participated in the competition in years past, but with a different house. She moved to a new home on Pine Street earlier this year.
“I just, I love Halloween,” Papiez said. “So that is one reason we decided, once we were settled this year, to do the contest again.”
Papiez said participating in the competition let her express her creativity.
“We like to do it child-friendly, because of course we want the kids to enjoy it, too,” Papiez said. “Not all kids like, you know, super scary.”
Each winner received a $50 gift card to Aurelio’s Pizza and a yard sign.
Bouaphanh and Opyt said they will definitely be entering again next year. Bouaphanh is already thinking of improvements for their display. Their dream, he said, is an inflatable Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man tall enough to be seen over the top of the house.
The O’Malleys are taking suggestions for future iterations of the Homewood Cemetery. Heather O’Malley said she’s sure the display will be back again next year.
“I have a feeling we’re not going to have a choice,” she said, smiling.
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