By Joann M. Ringelstetter
In February of this year, during a visit with our aunts and uncles (our dad’s brothers and sisters), somehow the subject of going to the outhouse came up. And, at one point, one of them began telling the story of how our Uncle George, one of our favorite uncles, had painted a funny message on their outhouse when he was a kid.
From 1942 to 1945, as the Second World War raged on, the United States government found it necessary to ration many things due to shortages in the supply of these items. The list of rationed items included coffee, sugar, meat, cheese, shoes, cars, tires, and gasoline. In 1943, the U.S. Office of Defense Transportation published a poster showing a train car overcrowded with passengers, many of them servicemen in uniform. The rest were civilians. In large letters at the top of the poster, it said, “IS YOUR TRIP NECESSARY?” At the bottom, it said, “NEEDLESS TRAVEL interferes with the War Effort.”
Even though Uncle George was just a kid at the time, he found humor in this serious message and decided to paint it on the side of the outhouse.
Speaking of uncles, another of our dad’s brothers, Uncle Vic, owned some vacation property when we were kids. This property had a cottage or cabin on it (which we called “Vic’s shack”), along with a two-seater outhouse.
We visited this property and stayed overnight once and Ruth and I couldn’t resist having our picture taken inside the outhouse. The following photo was scanned in from our collection of old family photographs, so the quality isn’t very good, but we wanted to share this humorous moment with you.
There’s an old schoolhouse in Richland County, Wisconsin that we have visited numerous times. Down the hill from the schoolhouse, an outhouse sits amidst some sumac, which turns red in the fall. On one of our more recent visits, I decided to check out the inside of the outhouse and I discovered that it was actually a three-seater to which modern toilet seats had been added.
Even more interesting than it being a three-seater outhouse, was the hand-written sign on the wall. It said the following:
PLEASE
Put the toilet paper back
in the coffee can. on
account of the mice!!
THANKS
The way this note was written, with a period after the word “can,” it appeared as if the author had written the instruction to “put the toilet paper back in the coffee can” and then returned later to explain why.
Last fall, Ruth and I spent the day with our sister, Peggy, who lives near Beloit, Wisconsin. She took us to the Hanchett-Bartlett Homestead, an 1857 Victorian farmstead. In addition to the original stone house, stone barn, and restored one-room schoolhouse, there is a large outhouse. Since it was late in the fall, the homestead buildings were all locked, but when I peered in the window of the outhouse, it appeared to be a seven-seater. Talk about a family affair! We hope to visit the homestead in the near future during their open season and see for ourselves.
In the meantime, Happy Shunpiking!
Joann
I remember growing up on a farm with an outhouse. There was another farm just down the road which had indoor plumbing. They had a son who, when he and I were in our teens, would make fun of me for using an outhouse.
ReplyDeleteWell, one day there was a power outgae, which meant that our neighbors' plumbing also stopped working. Soon their son had to "go", and it wasn't a situation where he could just go behind a tree. After a lot of squirming around, holding his aching belly and hoping the power would be back online soon, he gave in and ran down the road to our house. Blushing deeply, he asked my mother if he could use our outhouse. I would have told him to use the cow pasture, but my mother was nicer than me and said yes. I did stand outside and laugh at the sounds he made in there. But he came out with a big grin on his face, and he never made fun of our outhouse again!
Thanks for the story. It really made me laugh! My parents bought their first farm when I was two years old. It was a few years before our dad added a bathroom onto the house. That was a thrilling time because we no longer had to use the scary outhouse.
DeleteMine was in use for my entire childhood, and still is as far as I know. The farm is in Hawaii, so no shoveling snow off the path to the outhouse, and no cold breezes on the nether regions, issues that you mentioned having with outhouses in your area. But, on the other hand, even more bugs than you would probably have in a temperate-climate outhouse. Roaches, fire ants. and once I saw a spider on the lid that was so big its legs stretched from one side of the lid to the other. On that occasion, I held it until the spider moved on. When the boy had to use our outhouse, I was sure to inform him about all these creepy-crawlies that would probably run across his booty as he was using it. I was hoping that big spider would make a reappearance, but it didn't.
DeleteWe also had an open-air shower. Well, on two sides there were wooden partitions for privacy, but the other two sides had a view of the jungle. The mosquitoes would always attack every inch of bare skin I had when I went to use it.
There was also a YWCA camp I went to, also in my teens, that had a five-seater outhouse. It was the only facility for more than a hundred campers (the counselors had their own, but we were strictly forbidden to use it), so it was always a busy place, and in the mornings there was usually a line out the door. It was the kind of restroom that made you wish you were constipated, but the canteen food tended to have the opposite effect!
Thanks for the laughs tonight! Maybe you should start a blog. Your story is interesting and humorous!
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