Blog – Page 3

April 15, 2020

Oh, the Places We’ll Go and the Things We Will See!

Since no one is traveling much right now, let’s check out when our families did.

Both the Hegeler and the Carus families were world travelers and with the Hegeler’s 8 or the Carus’ 6 children, it took a lot of containers to hold everything. Up in our attic, we have what is fondly referred to as the “Trunk Room”. It is one of the high points on our Whole House Tours. There is such a variety of trunks up there and just imagine the stories they could tell.

Trunks, trunks and more trunks. These are about 2/3rds of the trunks. There are more along another wall. You can see a number of steamers in here.

The curved-top one is a camel-back. Only the wealthy traveled with camel-backs. The crews on ships, trains, etc. would just pile everyone’s heavy trunks on top of each other. Don’t want yours to get crushed? Make certain yours goes on top by adding a camel-back hump to it so nothing can be put on top of it!

The rectangular, very sturdy one is a Steamer Trunk. They were loaded into the (wait for it…) steam rooms of ships. The latches on some of the trunks are amazing. When you think about what would be in the trunks, it makes sense that they would need to be very secure.

Camilla’s case is less sturdy and more apt to be kept with her as she traveled.

And away we go!

This is from the backside of the trunk pile.

April 14, 2020

The Little Tub

There was a lot of interest yesterday about the little bathtub.

At that time, big baths were “once-a-week” activities. These tubs were more for daily wash ups. You would sit on the rim with your legs in the tub and do a “sponge bath”. Or you could sit down in it with your legs hanging over the sides. The little bathtub is called a “Sitzbad”. Pronounced Zits-Bod. Means literally a “sitting bathtub.” Plus it was great to bathe kids.

The sitzbad in east bathroom on the second floor.

This sitzbad can be seen on a Whole House tour.

April 13, 2020

The Victorian Privy

There has been a lot of focus on toilet paper lately which got Cindy thinking about the bathrooms at the Hegeler Carus Mansion:

The Mansion was one of the first homes to have indoor plumbing in the area. There was not a lot of plumbing expertise yet and as a result there was also a lot of water damage from leaks. I do not have access to the Mansion’s original bathroom pictures (1876) but following are pictures of Camilla’s bathroom that we know was installed in 1882. Dates of the others are unknown but expected to be around that time. First a bit on early plumbing history.

Some running water was available in homes by the mid 1800s, but even by the 1870s, less than 10% had them.

The first modern flush toilet was exhibited in 1851 and were around in the 1880s but were not common.

Water companies generally allowed two to five gallons of water per home per day, and most of that went for cooking and laundry. (To add to that, the Mansion has a large water tank that collected rain water for use in the Mansion.)

In 1910, toilet designs shifted from the high elevated water tank (worked with gravity) to the more contemporary closed toilet tank and bowl we are familiar with today.