Ah, how stupid of me!
We had an ice box and a coal furnace, but we also had a real live flush terlet! With 4 other kids and mom and dad, the wait made it seem like it was 50 yards away, though. Our yard was too small for an outhouse. We didn't even have room to park a car.
You do know that is the reason some of us still call them ice boxes don't you?
WE lived in an old Houston neighborhood called the Houston Heights.
Our daughter bought an old house in that neighborhood and she said she and several neighbors could not figure why they all had a small hill of dirt about 50 feet from the back door.
I figured that when the Heights got city sewage lines, they dumped the dirt where the outhouse had been. After that she referee to that spot as “sh** hill”.
we also had a ice box with a horse drawn wagon delivering ice twice a week. Indoor plumbing, but we were city folk, rural areas still had outhouses. But when dad bought property on Lake Huron, that was our summer place....2 large army tents. One for eating and reading, the other for sleep in the summer. The first outhouse dad built was too close to the eating tent. Mom made him fill it in and he dug one over on the far side of the place. Grandma’s farm had an outhouse and chamber pots under each bed..I could give up quite a few modern things, but indoor plumbing is worth going to war for..