John Shrader Part 11 - God's Grifter Falling Apart

[PennySycamore]

1 hour ago, Granwych said:

I remember seeing a gag gift called "electric toilet paper,"  which was a corncob with an electric cord and plug attached.

I'll kindly see myself out now...

I rmember those!  They were in the Spencer's catalogue insert in the Sunday Parade.

[FeministShrew]

7 minutes ago, apple1 said:

I am "old" - but not THAT old, FWIW. One side of the family was just that poor. The other side, well, I think some odd decisions were made, as they COULD have afforded a bathroom. They had plumbing to the kitchen; just needed to build a real bathroom (they did later).

Are you one of my relatives? To this day, the house my mom grew up in did in does not have an indoor bathroom. It'sa log cabin that was built long before the Civil War. Only a sink in the kitchen and a bathtub on the back porch, with a curtain around it.  No outhouse either. In the summer you went to the barn, in the winter you used a chamberpot. My aunts and to adult cousins lived there until about  4 years ago. Both of my aunts worked at a major plant and had high salaries for women in our area, and one of my cousins was the county building inspector. They bought nice cars, air conditioners, carpet, etc., but never even pit in a toilet. How the house was never condemned I don't know. This is in Union County, SC, and it's not even that rural.

[apple1]

10 minutes ago, FeministShrew said:

Are you one of my relatives? To this day, the house my mom grew up in did in does not have an indoor bathroom. It'sa log cabin that was built long before the Civil War. Only a sink in the kitchen and a bathtub on the back porch, with a curtain around it.  No outhouse either. In the summer you went to the barn, in the winter you used a chamberpot. My aunts and to adult cousins lived there until about  4 years ago. Both of my aunts worked at a major plant and had high salaries for women in our area, and one of my cousins was the county building inspector. They bought nice cars, air conditioners, carpet, etc., but never even pit in a toilet. How the house was never condemned I don't know. This is in Union County, SC, and it's not even that rural.

Well - actually - my relatives were from rural IN (one side) and TN (other side).

Another little "can you believe it" -- When my husband and I were looking around preparing to buy our first home, in the multiple listing, there was a house - this is OH, outer suburbs of a major city - listed with the comment, "No bath but a path."

[Freejin]

What the hell is Scripture Saturation Evangelism? 

[formergothardite]

You hand out thousands of tracts and hope somebody gets saved. 

[Gobsmacked]

1 hour ago, apple1 said:

Well - actually - my relatives were from rural IN (one side) and TN (other side).

Another little "can you believe it" -- When my husband and I were looking around preparing to buy our first home, in the multiple listing, there was a house - this is OH, outer suburbs of a major city - listed with the comment, "No bath but a path."

No bath but a path describes my Nannas house! She lived in it from 1933 until 1979.

The family have memories of walking down the path with a Tilley lamp to light our way!

Summer was worst as the light attracted the Moths and Daddy-long-legs!

Baths were taken once a week in a tin bath that hung on a hook on the back yard wall!

This was no so rural Lancashire. 

[subsaharanafrica]

47 minutes ago, Freejin said:

What the hell is Scripture Saturation Evangelism? 

It's the John Shrader equivalent of dropping propaganda leaflets out of a plane over enemy territory during wartime. Just substitute Land Cruiser for plane and people of the same religion for enemy and is pretty much the same thing. 

[Palimpsest]

2 hours ago, apple1 said:

guess I am not sure exactly when IFB made the turn from seminary with real education to non-education and "trail of blood". (Yes, I know much of IFB did this).

I'd very much like to know the answer to this and how many IFB churches are into the Trail of Blood theory today. The idea seems to have its roots in "Landmarkism" developing in the early 19th century, which caused a big split in the American Baptist church movement.  Then James Carroll came along and did his lectures in 1930, or thereabouts.  It is interesting as well as weird.

Shrader has really glommed on to it with his "Historical Biblical Baptist" stuff.

42 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

Baths were taken once a week in a tin bath that hung on a hook on the back yard wall!

This was no so rural Lancashire. 

We forget how modern the concept of indoor plumbing really is.  In was thought very unhygienic to have the toilet actually in the house by many.   Very few people in the UK had indoor bathrooms - or indeed running water - except for a communal shared tap and shared privies in the "yards" of tenements until post-WWII rebuilding in the 50s and 60s. 

My granny also had an outside loo until the mid 70s, but it did at least flush and was connected to a town sewer in the 50s.  Before that it had a cesspit. This was a small town on the E. Sussex coast.

[Gobsmacked]

Palimpsest, was your Granny's town affected by the huge floods which occurred in the 1950's? 

[Palimpsest]

14 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

Palimpsest, was your Granny's town affected by the huge floods which occurred in the 1950's? 

Probably.  It flooded in 2006 too.  It is famous for having a beach that is inadequate and keeps eroding away.  They built the beach up in the 1980s and had Parliamentary inquiries when it all washed away again the same year.  They keep having to top it up.

It used to be a sleepy little seaside town but is now a bedroom community for London and has grown enormously.

[Gobsmacked]

My Nannas village is now a sizeable commuter town for Liverpool and Manchester. I asked because the flooding was possibly the reason for being connected to the main sewers. 

Nannas was connected late 50s, early 60s in a general improvement plan for rural communities. No flooding though thankfully.

 

[sawasdee]

I grew up in Hackney, in East London, and we shared an outside loo with another family until 1968. I remember the daddy long legs too! We also had a tin bath that hung on the wall outside at the back of the house, and also used the public baths.

At the baths, the water was controlled from outside the door -  you shouted for "more 'ot in number three!"

When we got an indoor , proper bathroom in 1968 we were the only house in the street to have one. We only got it because my Mum's brothers were all plumbers/electricians/builders - and they 'liberated' various fixtures and built it  - nothing matched, of bath, loo and sink....but we had a bookshelf in an alcove by the bath - I come by my bookaholism honestly!

[Palimpsest]

14 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

When we got an indoor , proper bathroom in 1968 we were the only house in the street to have one.

Did they build an extension or convert a bedroom?  People have to get very inventive fitting bathrooms into old houses.  I remember looking at a flat where the bath was in the kitchen.  You had to flip back the top of the kitchen "table" to find it underneath.  That flat did have a separate loo tucked in at the end of the hall but I was put off by the bath.

When I was a student in the 70s in London, I shared a formerly rather grand but very run down Edwardian house with 13 other people.  It had been built without bathrooms or an indoor loo.  A huge dressing room next to the biggest bedroom (3 of us shared that room) had been converted into a bathroom.    Sink, claw foot bath, a tiny heated towel rail as far as possible from the bath, and a lot of empty space.  No central heating either. There was a tiny separate loo next to the bathroom but no sink in there.  The old spider-ridden outdoor toilet beyond the scullery was still used, believe me.

We must have been tough in those days.  I don't remember complaining about it and the rent was cheap. 

[sawasdee]

@Palimpsest That house sounds like the legal squat I lived in in King's Cross in the 70s! We paid 70p a week each- but had to move in a week whenever the council got round to renovating.

Our bathroom in Hackney was the former kitchen, the living room became kitchen/living. Both were very small!

[Gobsmacked]

My parents bought our  first house with a bathroom in 1969. The bathroom had been made by cutting a large back bedroom in half.

The bedroom had 1/2 the left side of the widow, the bathroom had the right 1/2.

My mother made a small curtain to fit each  side.

No central heating. Just two coal fires downstairs. 

[sawasdee]

We had paraffin heaters for every room but the living room. They were dangerous as hell - and smelt to high heaven! And the paraffin was heavy to carry home....

I think the brand was Valor.

[Gobsmacked]

I still remember the smell of the hardware shop where we bought the paraffin from.

The heater stood on the upstairs landing. It did take the chill off the bedrooms. The smell was unpleasant. It didn't work that well in the middle of winter, the bedroom windows usually had ice on the inside! Single glazing only in terraced houses in those days.

 

[PennySycamore]

@Gobsmacked, my husband's grandmother was from Bedford.  It's good to see another Nanna mentioned.  

[Grimalkin]

Hi all, John wants us all to know he had 90 people at church today. 

[Howl]

3 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

Hi all, John wants us all to know he had 90 people at church today. 

Oh, my.  That seems......unlikely. 

[uber frau]

10% are regulars,10% are Schraders and Esther spent the week slaving away preparing food and singlehandedly attracted more than 70 ppl.

[BlackberryGirl]

when my parents bought our first house in 1957, there was no bathroom, heat, electric, or running water. My dad put all that in. The last thing to go in was the bathroom. I still remember bathing in the creek, watching autumn leaves float past me.. BRRRR

I also recall him carrying an enormous  snake out of the upstairs  and throwing it out in a field.   years and years later (1980) my sister's family was eating dinner in that ssame house when a snake fell onto the table..

[Seahorse Wrangler]

11 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

My granny also had an outside loo until the mid 70s, but it did at least flush and was connected to a town sewer in the 50s.  Before that it had a cesspit. This was a small town on the E. Sussex coast.

My grandmother sold her house in the early 1990's and it still had an outside loo.It was one of a handful left in the area of post WWI housing. As the younger generations bought these houses as starter homes an inside  lavvy was the preferred option.

 

This was NE England.

[Cartmann99]

13 hours ago, Freejin said:

What the hell is Scripture Saturation Evangelism? 

Every time I read this, I think about those old commercials for Palmolive dishwashing liquid with Madge the manicurist.

For those who need a refresher:

Customer comes in the salon, complains her hands look like hell from washing dishes, and Madge tells her to sit down. Madge then starts yapping away about the awesomeness of Palmolive, while her customer has one hand soaking in a small glass bowl. The customer then says something negative about Palmolive, and Madge would point at the glass bowl and inform the customer "You're soaking in it!". The customer would then yank her hand out of the bowl like it was raw sewage or something, while Madge explains that Palmolive is the best thing ever!!! and pushes her hand back in the bowl. 

Anyway, the next time Madge sees the customer, she's jabbering away like a MLM saleswoman on meth about the gloriousness of Palmolive dishwashing liquid. Lather, rinse, repeat with new commercials where Madge gets more and more women hooked on Palmolive. 

So with that in mind, I keep picturing John Shrader next to ginormous tub full of potential converts and jam packed with his tracts. Shrader is laughing maniacally and yelling " You're soaking in it!" as the potential converts look at him like he's crazier than the proverbial outhouse rat.

[subsaharanafrica]

I love how he felt the need to photograph said 90 people at his church as proof--Despite not being "numbers people".