Slop Jar
June 19th, 2007 by Matthew Jabs
Who knows what a slop jar is?
This is a term I was unfamiliar with until yesterday. My wife’s grandfather (Al) is 86 (I think), anyway…he’s been around awhile. Yesterday we had a family get-together & I spoke with Al at length about a lot of the different things he’s been through & seen in his lifetime.
Grandpa Al was born in roughly 1920, so if you consider the time, he has lived through an amazing amount of technological advances. Al grew up on a farm in Rosebush, MI. He worked the farm with his father, brother, and some hired men. The farm had a tenant house where the hired men would live while Al’s father employed them on the farm.
Throughout the 30’s they plowed the fields with horse drawn plows. Also, he was telling us how they didn’t have running water or toilets until the 1940’s; and, even then there were no bathrooms or running water in the tenant house, just in the main farm house.
After some time, Al’s father went to meet the Lord and Al & his brother inherited the farm. Al married Jessie Kaninski in 1944 and they moved into the tenant house. Al’s mother, brother, & sister were living in the main farm house. Al & Jessie lived there a few years and ended up having two children in that home. While Al was telling me these stories I couldn’t help but wonder more about the bathroom/shower/bath situation, so I asked him.
Al proceeded to inform me that up until the 1950’s he & Jessie had no shower, bath, indoor toilet, or even running water! He mentioned how they didn’t shower or bathe, they would basically just “wash up” in the wash basin. 
Since it’s freezing cold in Rosebush, MI more than half the year, I also wondered about using an outdoor bathroom in the winter months. Al went on to tell me that, in the winter, they would use “slop jars” and then empty them in the out house each morning. So I inquired more about the “slop jar” and sure enough, it was a bucket with lid that you would use for waste, then empty it into the outhouse in the mornings. Generally the slop jars were stored under the bed (mmm…yummy).
After doing a little more research, it appears that slop jars were very common in country homes until after World War II (1945). I had never heard this & it really surprised me. I knew that this type of thing happened, but I had no idea it was commonplace in such recent history.
Have you ever used a slop jar? 
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My father, who grew up in Oklahoma and moved to Arizona after WWII, told me all about slop jars and how people used to bathe, wash their hair, etc. It was different, to say the least.
We live in such a modern, sanitized environment that living like that is beyond most of us. Not I, as I have had to live in those conditions more than once. Except that I had to dig a hole and bury my slop.
Did the Army afford you those experiences, or did you just do so for fun?
U.S. Marines does not equal U.S. Army. If you want to jab at me, at least get the branch right.
The “Marines” afforded me those experiences.
Ahhh yes, how could I forget…Always Faithful…
I grew up in the fifties, and until I was a teenager, our house had only a two-seater out back. For cold weather, we used a white porcelain slop jar for elimination and then my mother would empty it on the hillside or into the two-seater. Sometimes, in warmer weather, we would just find a spot on the hillside out back. I presume we had toilet paper, or maybe we used the Sears-Roebuck catalog, or leaves–not poison oak, I hope. Not sure about that item of our daily cleanliness. When people say they would like to have lived in “olden times”, I say–NO WAY!!!
Judy
[...] that indoor plumbing is a relatively new invention. Not only 100 years ago people were still using slop jars to keep their waste [...]
I used to date a guy who lived in a self-described \”hovel\”. This was in 1985-1989. He had a solar generating plant, a pond to bathe in, an outdoor hand pump to get water from a well, and no indoor facilities for washing or elimination. He actually used something like a slop jar, a more modern version that you can find in most camping equipment stores. It was a bucket that had a toilet seat that snapped onto the top. The wonderful thing about these somewhat quaint and rustic living quarters was that the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. The bookshelves were filled with musty books on all subjects: fiction and non fiction. The man, whose name is Al, is a wanna-be writer who had a degree in English compostion from the University of Michigan. I have not seen Al in quite a few years, but last I knew, he married and upgraded his \”hovel\” to include more modern bathroom facilities. Too bad…..he was a very unique person, hated to see him sell out for modern conveniences.
Ahhhh…good ole\’ \”Al Cheapo\”!
Al was a pretty cool guy, definitely a different character. I wish I would have been a little bit older when Al was around, I probably would have saw more things eye-to-eye with him now!
What a load of $hit!
you’re full of it buddy!
Philippines have its own version of slop jars which we call “arenola”. It is the custom of the oldies to place one under their bed before they sleep. When they feel the call of nature, instead of going to the toilet, they just simply pull the arenola under their bed.
Slop jars were used to slop pigs. All the food scraps were kept in the slop jar and then fed to the pigs. So, slop was food. But, slop jars were also used for… ya know, bathrooms. We had to use one when my step grandpa who was a night watchmen was asleep because otherwise we would wake him on our way to the bathroom. Gives a whole new meaning to “suey”. lol
Oh yes,
I remember when I was a little bitty tot, My momma would get me out of a warm warm cot, And set me on a cold cold pot, And wee wee Whether if I could or not.
been there done that, I’m 66
It has a more fancy’er name than slop jar: “Combonet” at least I think thats how you spell it.
Have A Happy
Fred M