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"Our Privy"by: Leone Nash-Jackson
A man, Chick Sale by name, in 1927, published a book called "The Specialist". Ross Wallace, the man who built our privy, did not claim to be a specialist, but he built the best privy I ever saw until I visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
A cement walk had been built along the west wall of the drive house and around the back to another much smaller building. It had a pole on it on which to fasten a flag. Flags flew! This building was painted red and trimmed with white. The walls inside were to the same lumber as the drive house. Inside, the lower walls of this building were painted red, the upper part painted light green and the ceiling white. Now, even though it was a well built and comfortable little building, it was not used extensively for entertaining. It contained four seats. These seats contained holes of varying sizes and were covered with hinged lids. This building was erected to serve a useful and fundamental purpose. It did admirably. With the addition of newspapers, the occasional Eaton's catalogue, it became the outside reading room.
It was our privy.
Way back when privys were in vogue, so were wood stoves in the kitchen, and when necessary, ashes were dumped in the privy to deaden the odour. Ours was a well kept privy.
Several weeks ago, I was invited to have lunch at a friend's house who had a beautiful house on 20 highway. The conversation got around to bathrooms. My hostess, before her marriage, lived in an old house in Ancaster. I felt she would know about privys, so I asked her about the toilet arrangements in her father's home.
"Oh yes", said Anne, "We had two: A gentlemen's and a ladies…The gentlemen's had two seats, while the ladies had three, two for adults and one for children."
I had visited some of similar design and décor as ours. Some were wall-papered with paper left over from rooms in the house, some were even white-washed.
About 1906, two new houses were erected down the road from our house, the houses of Uncle Will Nash and my cousin Frank Nash. These were beautiful brick houses in which, like in "Oklahoma", you could go to the privy and never wet your feet!
I have said ours was the finest privy I had ever entered. 'Tis good to have family pride. I can say that no longer, and I say this without jealousy. I went to on a bus trip with the "60 Club" to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We were shown spots of local interest along the way. In Lancaster, we visited the home of James Buchanan, a beautiful home built about 1820 and purchased by Buchanan in 1840. There, you walked out of the rear doors, through a bit of garden and into the privy, an eight holer, five for adults, three for children.
Mr. Buchanan was a lawyer. He held many important positions in the United States Government including the Presidency from 1860-1864. So to endeavour to compete with a former President of the United States on the issue of best privy: no way.
In concluding, I'll say my father [Joseph Williamson Nash] was a fruit grower in Stoney Creek, in the Niagara Peninsula and we had the finest privy I was ever in, in this area.
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The Nash-Jackson House, a unique early Ontario home, will stand in commemoration of the prominent family that once inhabited it. |
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