About two years before moving to Idaho, my parents added a bathroom to our house. No longer did we make the trek outside in all kinds of weather, to use the bathroom. Nor would we ever have to take a bath in the small round tub in the middle of the kitchen floor.
The shiny white porcelain tub sat in one corner of the new bathroom with a toilet next to it. I remember sitting in a tub full of hot water, legs stretched out full length, soaking. Then with a twist of the tap more hot water flowed into the bathtub and I could soak even longer. But now, we moved to a new house far away in Idaho, and again there stood an outhouse next to the woodshed. The trips to the smelly outhouse started once more. It was winter and I hated sitting down on the cold wooden seat, the shock almost made you forget why you had left the warmth of the house, in the first place. The early morning trip proved even colder than the night before! In comparing this outhouse to the one in Utah, I liked this one better. It had two seats, a shorter one for kids, where my feet touched the floor. Here, in this harsh land I would soon learn to appreciate the little things in life.
There was a fun side to the outhouse for our older cousins. They often came in the summers to help with the haying. One year, our cousin brought his new “city” wife, and he always accompanied her on the nightly trip to the toilet. The other cousins soon picked up on this, and started plotting to scare her. First, they hid behind trees and howled like a coyote, which made her really nervous, but they wanted more of a reaction. The next night they carefully placed an old bobcat hide around the toilet seat, then hid in the hayfield and waited. When her bare bottom touched the bobcat fur, she didn’t disappoint them. I imagine the screams are still echoing from one end of Long Valley to the other.
The weekly Saturday night bath was again taken in a small round galvanized tub in the middle of the kitchen floor, in front of the wood burning range, the warmest place in the house. We were lucky to have running water piped into the house from a well, but we didn’t have a hot water heater. Bath night worked a certain way at our house. Mom would have to heat water on the wood stove in several kettles and then pour them into the tub and put more water on to heat. She then added cold water to get the right temperature. Then Mom took the first turn because she was the cleanest of the dirty. After she finished, hot water was added and I was next. Then we followed up the line in order of age, hot water added with every person. Daddy was always the last in line, and I don’t know if he ever got to take a bath in clean water.
Baths in the summer were taken more often and easier for everyone. The hayfield crew came in hot, dirty and itchy, grabbed towels, suits (maybe) and a bar of soap as they headed for the icy waters of Boulder Creek, about ½ mile away. Boulder Creek’s headwaters located on Jug Handle Mountain and our house nested at its base. A perfect swimming hole at the bridge, made a good place to get clean and cool. There was a lot of horseplay to bring a day of hard work to a close. Proof that farm work is not all work and no play. The younger kids were not forgotten in this ritual, since early in the morning, an old bathtub filled with water and left in the sun to warm during the day. Before we were called to supper, all of us played, splashed and washed the dirt away, and then took a quick rinse in the cold water of the lawn sprinkler.
Water had to be heated for everyday needs, dishwashing etc. and washday. Power outages and frozen pipes were always a problem. If that happened, then we had to haul snow in, to melt for water. It was never a problem to find snow in Lake Fork, but it still required many trips. It takes a lot of snow to make that much water.
I remember that Daddy installed a water heater that first winter so we would have instant hot water. But an indoor bathroom didn’t make an appearance for several more years. By then we again really appreciated being able to turn on the tap for more hot water, stretch out in the tub, and sit on a warm toilet seat instead of making the cold trip to the outhouse. Maybe this was when Daddy finally got to take a bath in his very own bath water.
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