The Pumpkin Lady

A Halloween documentary for the ages

One of the great things about having spent the last six years working in TV production and development has been the amazing variety of projects I’ve had a chance to work on, help out with, and try to find a home. Few have given me as much pleasure as The Pumpkin Lady, which documentary film-maker Jean Herbold brought to Cat Mihos and I at The Blank Corporation a couple of years ago.

From the very first time I heard Jean describe the story of The Pumpkin Lady of Fond du Lac, and showed what she wanted to do with it, I was hooked… and watching as she’s started to build the film has been a joy. Everything’s hard out there at the moment in the television business. Getting anything at all made is an uphill struggle.

So I wanted to give Jean a chance to talk about this passion project in the hope it might make some difference to carrying it over the line.

So, Jean: tell us about yourself…

“I am a native Wisconsinite. I was born in southeast Wisconsin, in a small city surrounded by dairy farms and lakes. I attended the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where I studied film during the slacker days of the early 90s. One of my classmates was the star of American Movie, Marc Borchardt. I guess I should have known then that documentaries were going to be part of my future, but sadly I had no clue what I was going to do with this fine art degree in film.

After I graduated I took the roundabout route to becoming a producer, and basically worked in all the facets of film and TV production I could weasel my way into. For two years I worked at a talent agency in Milwaukee as a Talent Coordinator. I enjoyed that job a lot, but got paid very little and needed more challenges. So I moved to Colorado and Oregon where I found jobs working in promotions and scheduling for cable networks, radio stations and local TV affiliates. It wasn't until my mid-thirties that I got an opportunity to officially work in the production field. As I slowly ambled my way up the ladder to become a freelance producer, I worked on numerous corporate communication videos, non-profit videos, local and national commercials, documentary shorts, and a handful of non-scripted television productions. 

Late in 2016, during the US Presidential election, I was searching for a project that would bring some joy and light into my life. I was tired of putting my efforts into corporate communications that went in one ear… and out the other just as fast. I wanted to tell a story about someone starting over, and finding their happiness in an unlikely place. That is when Lainey Morse and her Goat Distraction was created. It felt amazing to research, write and direct a story myself. I was addicted. I realized that documentaries, long or short, didn't have to be painfully serious, dark, and depressing in order to be effective. I made it my mission to find stories about people and subjects that others rarely think twice about, but which deserve to be heralded.  

In 2020, after watching the incredibly funny documentary, Class Action Park, I found my inspiration. We were about to go through our first Halloween during a worldwide epidemic. Everything felt incredibly scary and tenuous at the time, but people all over the US were looking for a way to still have some fun. That Halloween, as I walked through my neighborhood, I saw small candy chutes from people's front porches to the sidewalk, or clotheslines strung in the front yard with candy bars clipped to them. We were living through uncertain times, when we were not allowed to be together, but yet people still wanted kids to have fun and enjoy being a kid.

And a big part of being a kid, at least in the US, is experiencing Halloween. That was when the Pumpkin Lady story hit me.” 

Tell us about the Pumpkin Lady…

“This story is about my hometown of Fond du Lac, and how it responded to the death of a nine year old girl. On Halloween in 1973 a young girl named Lisa French was trick or treating in her neighborhood on her own. She went to the house of a family friend and neighbor, who invited her inside his house. That evening he sexually assaulted her and she died as a result. 

He hid her body in a cornfield and after 5 days hunting for the missing child, her body was found by a local farmer. For 9 months the city was unsure who had killed this girl, and why. The city was setting up nightly curfews and even talked about cancelling the Halloween tradition of trick or treating altogether.

But a local radio station owner, Loula Beckman, had an idea. She and her team created a radio party that would get kids to be home early on Halloween, before it got dark, with the promise of incredible prizes if the child was at home to receive a phone call. The host of the show was The Pumpkin Lady. 

For the last 50 years this radio show has continued to air in Fond du Lac. The Pumpkin Lady herself passed away in 1990, yet it continues. The station that initially aired it has been sold, yet it continues. Children carry cell phones these days, yet it continues!  This community loves this tradition and proudly keeps it going. Through the stories and interviews I have collected I want to illustrate the world we lived in as children, and the wonder we felt listening to this magical show.

For generations children have listened to a show that was created to keep us safe during very scary and uncertain times. We all want to find ways to protect our children, yet still give them the joyous freedom and excitement that accompanies it. That is what I hope to achieve with this partially illustrated documentary.” 

Tell us how we can help…

“Last year we shot interviews and collected a ton of fantastic B-roll over the Halloween weekend in Fond du Lac. Since then I have been working with an editor and illustrator who have gotten us to a great rough edit. Our next hurdle will be raising funds so we can create the animated segments of the film. Since people are describing their Halloween memories, and what they imagined while listening to a radio show, we need to re-create that world. I love animation, and when I think of Halloween I always think of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. So it made sense to me to integrate animation into this story.

This is a story about being a kid, and experiencing this charming annual community tradition. It is also about the resiliency the community found during a dark time in their history. I love the tradition that has been born out of this story. I also love that it only took losing ONE CHILD for my hometown to say “We have to find a better way.”  I so wish we could find a similar way forward after so many devastating gun tragedies involving children that we experience today. 

I have a Go Fund Me page that people can contribute to help us continue with animation and the finishing expenses for this film. Throughout October, I am posting segments from the rough cut on the Go Fund Me page, so that people to see how the story is coming together. We also would appreciate any suggestions regarding grants or foundations that might be a good fit, too!

Feel free to keep in touch with us here: The Pumpkin Lady.”

Here’s a teaser clip…

Back to me: The Pumpkin Lady is a charming, resonant and heartfelt story for our age — and for any age. If you feel that you’d like to help, please do. And thank you.