Saturday, March 20, 2010

PRIVACY (priv’acy) MATTERS

One of the obligations of the family historian is to record information that may not be passed on any other way. Therefore, though probably in poor taste, I feel it is my duty to recount some rather esoteric information about outhouses, as they relate to at least one branch of my family’s tree.

During my early years, as the country struggled its way out of the Great Depression, only to find itself involved in a second Great War, I don’t think indoor plumbing was of much concern to rural America. The privy was an integral part of my life, and at that time I’m not even sure I was aware there was an alternative to the privy, until my father brought us to California, near the end of the war. I will, however, never forget the outdoor toilet. Its distinctive stench is embedded in my scent memory and instantly recognizable. Don’t talk to me about the Good Old Days. I will forever be grateful for the luxury of the flush toilet.

The privies in this tale belonged to my favorite set of great-grandparents, Millard and Matilda Sabens. They didn’t travel with us to California, but stayed in Missouri, on their farm near the small town of Kearney, so the following privy accounting was passed on to me by my mother.

As a child, Mom and her cousin Floyd spent much of their time with Grandma and Grandpa Sabens on their farm and grew up as close as siblings. Mom told me that when either of them had to make use of the outhouse, Grandma always seemed to know about it and quizzed them closely if they stayed in the sh**ter too long…Grandma’s succinct term for the structure, not mine. Mom never could figure out why Grandma was so vigilant, since she and Floyd always used the privy separately—he was a BOY, for goodness sake!

It wasn’t until many years later that Mom learned the privy was where Grandma kept her “butter and egg” money. She earned her own money from selling chickens, eggs, and butter to her brothers, who ran restaurants in Kansas City. The profits were kept in coffee cans in the outhouse, hidden under the stacks of paper and catalogs used for toilet paper. She didn’t want a nosy grandkid, or anyone else, finding her money.

Years later, in 1942, Grandma took her coffee cans to the bank in Kearney and paid $1,250.00 in coins for a beautiful Victorian house she had set her heart on years earlier. She and Grandpa were to move there when they retired from the farm. Not only did she pay for the house in cash she had earned herself, she took title in her own name.

Grandpa may never have known where she had kept that money, since Grandpa didn’t use the outhouse, except under extreme emergencies. You see, Grandpa felt it wasn’t polite for a man to use the privy. It was a place suitable only for women and children. He relieved himself discreetly away from the house, at least for “Number One.” Grandpa may have been from the Barrens area of Kentucky with a limited education, but he had a firm sense of what was proper.

For more serious business, Mom told me, he walked down to the old windmill, where the stock watering trough was located. There, he sat on a fallen tree trunk and did what was necessary. While sitting, he rubbed two dried corn cobs briskly together to clean them off. When he was through, he used the corn cobs as toilet paper, and then set them aside to dry, then the whole process could be repeated on his next visit.

When Grandma and Grandpa retired from farming and moved into the house that Grandma had bought, it came complete with its own outhouse.
After Grandpa died a few years later, the family urged Grandma to have a bathroom added to the house. The idea was repellent to her.

“Why would I put the sh**ter in the house?” she retorted.

Grandma came from those same Barrens in Kentucky, although a bit coarse and poorly educated, and she had her own sense of propriety. I’m sure her reaction reflected the opinion of many of her generation. When you think about it, it’s easy to understand why a smelly privy inside the house would be considered way beyond the bounds of decency to many.

Eventually, however, her relatives persisted, until Grandma finally gave in reluctantly and had a bathroom installed in the house. Right next to the
kitchen!

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