I am surprised that none of the three dictionaries on my shelf include the word “outhouse.” Does it now fall under the topic of “un -mentionable” objects, or has the outhouse been forgotten already? It was a necessary building before the days of running water and was used year-round.
In my grandparents’ home in Oliver, I always thought Grandpa had been pretty smart to build his outhouse on the outside wall of the woodhouse connected to his home. It was actually an inside outhouse!
Most outhouses were built a distance out behind the house and usually out of view from the road or the neighbours.
Some outhouses had only one hole cut in the seat, while others had two holes. They always had a cover fashioned with some kind of a handle to easily cover the hole when not in use.
Some outhouses were painted or “whitewashed,” but usually the boards were just left to age into a soft grey colour. A small window was cut out high up on one of the walls, and of course, the cracks between the boards in the walls let in lots of light. In the winter they also let in the cold icy winds.
Big thick Eaton’s catalogues were put in the outhouse and they were used for two things - reading material and often toilet paper.
One of the aunts in my family always hated to do the dishes when she came home from Boston in the summer. So when a meal was over, she always made the excuse that she had to visit the outhouse. By the time she returned to the States she must have read the catalogues from cover to cover.
In the summertime the path to the outhouse was always mowed or tracked down, and in the winter the snow often had to be shoveled off the path.
Years ago, Halloween night was always an excuse to play pranks on some of the older people. I remember one couple who always woke up the next morning to find their toilet had (as usual) been knocked over. It was just a tradition in the community!
Of course every one-room school had the customary two outhouses set up behind the school - one for the boys and one for the girls. The boy’s door always hung open when not in use, but us girls always made sure we closed ours after we visited it.
The doors were mostly just made of planks nailed to a cross bar of wood. Occasionally there would be a hook and eye to keep it shut when in use, but most times there was just a piece of wood with a long nail driven in the center that you turned to keep the door closed.
During the years of the “outhouses” they seemed to be the centre of many pranks. Two middle-aged ladies named Margaret and Beulah who worked in Moncton often came to visit my family in this area on the weekends.
They would arrive on Friday evenings, bringing groceries and all kinds of treats for the elderly husband and wife. They also brought a small record player and lots of Cape Breton music.
Grandma loved the music and would stay up half the night visiting with them. She enjoyed their visits and loved to cook big dinners and make pies and biscuits for them when they came.
Granddad was a tall slender quiet man and always gave the appearance of being quite stern. However, he too enjoyed their visits. But even when there was company, he kept to his regular routine of going up to bed as soon as it got dark.
One Saturday night during a visit in the fall, Margaret and Beulah, were extra jovial after supper.
As usual before going to bed, Grandfather made his customary trip out to the little outhouse. A few minutes later when he came up hill, he looked a bit cross, but as usual didn’t say a word and went straight upstairs to bed.
The women burst into laughter after he went to bed and they told Grandma to get the flash light and come with them to the toilet. Sometime before supper, they had sneaked down and placed fur collars around the toilet holes. Grandpa must have thought when he sat down in the dark that there was some kind of a furry animal on the toilet seat, and they laughed as they imagined him jumping up in a hurry.
Of course, Grandpa never let on that he noticed anything different in the outhouse, and as far as I know he never ever mentioned it to anyone. However, the fur on the toilet seat prank became a favourite family story and has been told many times over the years.
Fortunately today there are modern bathrooms in most homes, leaving only some cottages and camping parks with outdoor toilets. And on construction sites, the metal “Johnny on the Spot” can’t compare with the old-fashioned outhouse.
Perhaps eventually, as in the dictionary now, the outhouse will be totally gone and found only in history books.