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outhouse

Your chance to be the first to use a brand new outhouse!

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A message from Pete:

I was going to do a raffle at Heit’s Point this year for the EXCLUSIVE
right to be the very first one to use Dad’s (Mahlon’s) re-furbished
outhouse. As you can see from the pictures, this is no ORDINARY outhouse. It has a walnut seat and cedar lined backing from lumber that I cut myself and had milled.

Of all of our aunts and uncles and older cousins, I have NEVER heard
anyone say that he/she was the very first to use a new outhouse! NOW is
your opportunity.

Whoever individually, or whatever group of family comes up with
the $325 to put us to the $10,000 mark for Heit’s Point will win that exclusive right to be the first to use this outhouse.

That will be the good news. The bad news is that I am unable and MOSTLY
unwilling to bring the outhouse to you! Sorry.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 38)

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Now we come to the most important structure on the farm.  The outhouse.  A wonder of wonders.  Stocked well with supplies of JC Penny and Sears Catalogues, the softest paper you could get on the farm!  You may get locked in by a sibling who had it in for you.  You may wish to tease city kids or nieces and nephews and lock them in for a good scare.  You might wish for indoor plumbing when it is 20 below and you have to GO or when wasps, snakes and spiders visit your outhouse.  You always look into the hole before you go to make sure old sneaky-snake is not there.  You end up simply being glad you had the experience of an outhouse!  In our community very few farm homes had indoor plumbing.  We got our indoor bathroom shortly after I graduated from high school.

We had a huge woodpile south of the yard fence.  We would fill the Radio Flyer wagon with wood and bring it in to the kitchen or stack it on the back porch.  We also had to find wood chips for kindling.  This was one of our chores as children growing up on the farm.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 26)

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My sixth grade year was spent at one-room Centennial School.  This was a new mixture of students from other areas of the community and kind of exciting.  Our teacher was Miss Luce.  There must have been over 25 students attending.  I remember some of the boys (Howard Carrendar) let the air out of Miss Luce’s car tire and got into a lot of trouble.  The bad word of all bad words was painted on the back of the school in two foot high letters by some prankster during the school year.  That caused a lot of commotion.  I didn’t know what the word meant so I asked Mother and not only did she not tell me what it meant, but I was punished for saying the word.  But I knew it was a word I was not supposed to use; of course I still didn’t know what it meant.

One common country prank was to push the school outhouses over.  Our school’s was pushed over.  I can’t remember much about where we went to the bathroom that day or if school was called off.  Bill Norfleet’s mom, Marge, brought birthday party cupcakes and candy to Centennial when Bill had his birthday.  This was something new introduced to us country children.  Miss Luce used to let me help the younger students with their class work.  I remember drawing paper dolls and clothes for a young girl.  Soon all the little girls wanted me to draw paper dolls for them.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (part 18)

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At night in winter on weekends we would sit around the kitchen table and play cards or monopoly until the fire died down and the kitchen got cold. Then we would go to the outhouse or use the indoor accommodation (pot with lid), and then run upstairs to bed and jump in under the covers as fast as we could. There was no heat upstairs except for the heat that came from the downstairs stove’s flue pipe. These pipes were very dangerous because if an article of clothing was left against them, the clothing could catch fire. There was one home in the community that burned down because of this. We were always very careful not to leave our clothes by the flue. When we went to bed, mother would always yell, “Make sure there are no clothes around the flue.” If we took a glass of water upstairs, it was sometimes frozen in the morning. We had plenty of very heavy quilts and blankets, so we were very snug once we got in bed. A few times we took hot irons (not the electric kind) up to the bed to help warm our feet.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (part 7)

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We would occasionally “pike” on the telephone. This is when you know someone is talking and you gently pick up the receiver hoping they won’t hear the click and invade their privacy by listening to what they are saying. Our ring on the country party line was long, short, long. Each family had a distinctive ring of their own. Central was located in Brazito. Spinster sisters manned the switchboard. They put the long distance calls through.

Attic beads – they were like finding treasure! We picked them up and made bracelets out of them by stringing them with a needle and thread. We had to be careful not to step through the attic floor – we would have ended up in the kitchen below.

After we got electricity, Mother got a Mixmaster. It came with a set of two bowls. I accidentally broke the larger bowl. I really felt bad because I know how much mother loved her mixer. We were able to replace it later on.

Under the stairs in our house was a scary place. Occasionally one of us locked the other under the steps. It was fun to hear the person scream but not to be the one locked in. Same with the outhouse!