Gleanings From A Lifetime – Part 5

I must have been about six when we moved into the Faxon House, about the time I started school. We still had a pump outdoors by the back step and you carried all the water in that you used and carried it out again. An outdoor toilet to care of our physical needs except for nights, extremely bad weather or when there was sickness. A pot or a chamber was called in for those times. They were made of earthen ware of some heavy dish-like material, some were low to the floor which must have been most uncomfortable for the adults and some stood maybe twelve or fourteen inches off the floor. These taller ones sometimes had matching washbowls and pitchers, so the pitchers could be filled with warm water to put in thewashbowl and you could bathe in the privacy of a bedroom. As I recall we all enjoyed a Saturday night bath when Mother’s was tub was brought into the kitchen, filled with water heated on a stove and we had a bath; me first, then Mother and finally Dad. How ever my six-foot Dad got curled up in one of those things I’ll never know and hope I never have to find out. Then of course the tub had to be carried out of doors to empty it.