During the war my husband was frozen on the job. Every house we had lived in had been sold out from under us. We decided to buy. The only one we could get into with what money we had did not have an indoor toilet. We had a little white two holer in the back yard.
One day before going to work my husband told me to be sure and put some paper out there. So on returning from the store I had my little boy take a roll out to “Mrs. Jones,” as that was what we called the outhouse.
That evening my husband hollered for paper. I couldn’t understand what had happened to the paper. On questioning our little boy as to what had happened to it, to my surprise he had taken it to a neighbor (Mrs. Jones). She was out of town and her husband thought we had borrowed it.
At the next P.T.A. she laughingly told me she knew what had happened, as before she was married they called their outhouse Mrs. Jones, too.
Dora Kennedy
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.
