~OUTHOUSES~

[Skittles]

Who has owned one, who has used one. And no, I'm not counting the freaking portapotties you once had to use at an outdoor concert. Both sets of my grandparents had outhouses. Believe you me, when it's 30 below zero in Minnesota an outhouse is the last place you want to be. :O

[populistmom]

1. Me, me, me!

Grandparent's farm in central Nebraska. They had a nice house with 4 bathrooms, but when I was little (in the Summer), it was more fun to use the outhouse. I'm glad I never had to venture forth in the Winter though. Brrrr! :scared:

[Lars39]

2. Both sets of my grandparents had outhouses and wells until 1977.

Glad they weren't in Minnesota. :scared: Brrr.

[supernova]

3. Paternal grandmother

had one at her house, which was a working farm. That was before my time though, the farm -- not the outhouse. I remember the outhouse very well.

I don't remember using it in winter. I guess I did. We also used chamberpots when it wasn't convenient to go outside just then.

[Skittles]

6. I used a chamberpot in England when I was a kid

(at my grandparents' house); strictly for peeing, mind you. :)

[trof]

4. On an auto trip with grandpa.

Back in the late 40s.
Stopped at a little gas station. I had to "go".
Grandpa took me around back to your basic one-holer.
When I finished I asked "How do you flush it?".
Why did he think that was so funny?
;-)

[arwalden]

5. My Grandparents Had An Outhouse...

... that they kept in working order even after they had indoor plumbing. (My grandmother liked it because it gave Granddaddy a place to go when he was doing yard work and kept him from "tracking up the floor" with his workboots.)

When I was a child, I used to think my mother was fibbing to me when she told me stories about NOT having a toilet inside... and taking baths in a galvanized steel washtub... and using kerosene lamps... and NOT having television... and the "icebox" was really an ICE-BOX.

== Allen

[Lars39]

7. My folks used a "crik" to keep their stuff cold.

Iceboxes didn't figure into the equation until they were grown.

I didn't understand how primitively my parents grew up until I started reading Little House on the Prairie and had questions.

My dad was recently asked to be a docent at Cade's Cove because he lived so much of it. He knows what all the old tools are used for, how to split shingles, kitchen stuff, too, 'cause he had to help out, what with being the oldest. Just amazing how they used to live.

[Skittles]

8. interesting you should mention Little House on the Prarie

my grandparents lived in an area of Minnesota (extremed southeast) where that family once lived.

[woofless]

10. Kinda the same with us up in MA.

You could only use the inside bathroom at night. In the daytime you had to use the outhouse. I have never gotten used to spiders after that.......lol.

[Bertha Venation]

23. icebox

My best friend lives in a fourplex that was built in the late 1910s. Each unit has an icebox. Of course they're used today as cabinets but for some reason the icebox fascinates me.

[CO Liberal]

9. My Grandparents' Farm In South Jersey

Outside Buena - north of Vineland, about 40 miles west of Atlantic City. They didn't get electricity until the mid '50s (I remember them using kerosent lamps), never had central heat (coal stove in the kitchen heated the entire house, and my father put a bathroom in for my grandmother in 1963 after Grandpa died (he offerred to do it sooner, but Grandpa wouldn't let him).

[Philostopher]

11. Oh, this brings back memories.

When I was in third to fifth grade, I had a friend whose parents had bought a house that had been part of an estate; it was a working farm, sold by the family of an elderly couple at the woman's death; the elderly couple had done few updates to the house. It had a chicken coop, push-button light switches (instead of vertical switches) and an outhouse. There was an electric pump on the well, but the water was well water. This would have been the early seventies, and the girl and I were friends for a few years in elementary school.

We used to spend the night at each other's houses, and if I recall correctly, it took them a year or so to come up with the money and chop out the space for an inside bathroom, so the first winter they were in the house we used the outhouse when I spent the night there. I remember it was a two-holer, and my friend, her younger sister and I used to bolt out there with our coats and boots on over our nightgowns, trying not to drop the flashlight, squealing and giggling like it was some kind of adventure. I guess it was, for kids who'd presumed things like inside toilets and fan-forced heat -- the first winter they were there, the entire four-bedroom house was heated with a Franklin stove in the middle of the living room, too, so it was colder than stink at night; we used to pile five or six blankets on the bed, and sometimes the three of us would crawl into the same bed just to stay warm enough.

I also remember my grandmother lived in a rented house when I was a kid. The house had a 'stool' (toilet) and a sink inside, but my grandmother resented the fact that the landlord chopped an eight-by-eight chunk out of her kitchen to put it in; she would have been happy to go to the outhouse, she'd done it all her life. She bathed in a galvanized tub with water she heated on the stove (she didn't even have a water heater until she moved across the street into a Metro Housing apartment complex for the elderly, and she always kind of seemed to resent that so much of the space inside was given over to the bathroom, and so little to the kitchen). One thing she did like was having, after seventy-odd years of life, a shower; she realized she actually quite liked hot water on demand and not splashing water all over the place.

There was, until about a decade ago, an abandoned outhouse behind my folks' house, too. When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she told my dad if he didn't put in an inside toilet and bath, she was going to move in with her mother until I was out of diapers, so he'd better think long and hard about it. He put in a bathroom and a tub. They 'decommissioned' the outhouse; I think Dad just poured the hole in the ground full of gravel and concrete, and he used it as a storage shed for the lawn mower. About ten years ago, he finally tore it down and built a small garden shed in the spot, but there was one in the back yard when I was a kid.

[Skittles]

14. wow, those are some memories!

I used to take baths in a tin bathtub in front of the fire. I used to think I should just toss some carrots and spuds in there with me. I remember my English grandfather just loved it because he could "take Shank's pony (walk) to the pub" whenever I took a bath . . . :D

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. Cook County (Illinois) forest preserves only.

But at a cousin's farmhouse in Luxembourg, the flush toilet was located in the animal barn. No, the animals didn't use it.

[cliss]

13. I grew up in Northern Sweden, and we had

a two-seater (outhouse, that is). I remember SO well what that was like. There were a couple of magazines in there, and you were supposed to read both side of the page before you tore it out, rubbed it in your hands to make the page real soft, and then you wiped your butt with it. It was really bad if someone forgot to replenish, the "toilet paper".

The worst part, though, was in the winter. There was a crack in the back wall of the outhouse, and the wind that blew through it was SO COLD, you thought you'd freeze your a** off.

Believe me, you got your business done with very quickly.

[Cleita]

21. Yikes. Couldn't you have used a chamber pot and then

run out and quickly dump it into the pit?

[greendog]

15. Yeah, last winter....

... I lived in a remote valley in northwest Montana. No electricity, no indoor plumbing. Had a hand pumped well, an outhouse, and a wood fired sauna. It got as cold as -32 degrees and we had snowfalls of up to 3 feet. The best winter of my life...I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

:)

[Don_G]

16. I've Used One

And it was in use right up to the time my Grandfather decided to light up a cigarette in a methane-enriched atmosphere.

He decided indoor plumbing would add to the value of his home that day.

[FlaGranny]

17. My parents got indoor plumbing

just before I was born, but there was still a backup outhouse in the back yard until I was about 6 or 7, which I used if someone was tying up the bathroom too long. Also, my cousin (who I often visited and stayed overnight) had one until I was 12 or 13.

I can't imagine using an outhouse at 30 below in MN. It's bad enough at 10 above zero. That's cold enough to freeze your sphincter and make it very hard to let go. My cousin's house had chamber pots for use at night in the winter. Ugghh.

I also used to pick berries at a farm. If you had to go while there, you used an outhouse.

[davsand]

18. We had one when I was a kid.

We also had indoor plumbing, but as a kid it was a great novelty in the summer (except for the smell.) I remember that in summer it was much easier to go in there than to run into the house. It stopped being "fun" after my mom told me about finding a snake curled up in the outhouse where it was shady...

Our next door neighbors still have one in their backyard. It is a big treat to the kids in summer. How long do I give my daughter before I tell her Grandma's story about finding the snake in the outhouse?

Laura

[Bunny]

19. My dad owned a hunting camp.

He put carpeting, a padded seat, and a heat lamp in the outhouse! Dee-luxe!

[Cleita]

20. As a campground host for many years,

not only did I use them, but I cleaned them. Sometimes there is an advantage to having sinus problems.

[Bertha Venation]

22. outhouse story

This happened to a woman I was at an evangelical Christian retreat with. She told this story with a strange relish....

In high school, Sue was at a different retreat, and she took a walk in the snowy woods with her boyfriend. After a while she found she needed to relieve herself, and they found an outhouse. She went in and took care of biz, but when time came to stand, she couldn't.

Turns out that although the outhouse was built of wood, the seat over the hole was metal. She had frozen to it.

She called out to her boyfriend that she was stuck and she needed warm water to pour on her hips so she could thaw and stand. He started to protest but she interrupted him and said, "Anything warm and wet will do...."

You can figure the rest out from there.