Seniors mark toilet paper 'birthday'

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Something often taken for granted but hard to live without -- toilet paper -- was celebrated by residents of a retirement community. Thelma Brittingham, in charge of the celebration at Holiday Retirement Village, told the Evansville Courier & Press that she wanted to give her fellow residents a reason to smile.

So Thursday, they ate ice cream and cake and put up decorations to celebrate the invention of the bathroom necessity.

Estimates vary, but Brittingham said her research found that some believe Aug. 26, 580, was the first time toilet paper, in a primitive form, was used.

"When some people heard we were celebrating toilet paper's birthday, they asked me, 'Have you lost your mind?' But it's just a lot of fun," she said. "So many of these people don't get out, don't laugh, and anything we can do to encourage laughter, we'll do."

Joseph Gayetty of New York is credited with inventing toilet paper in, 1857 made of just flat sheets, but the invention failed. Walter Alcock of Great Britain later developed toilet paper on a roll.

But it was in 1867 that brothers Thomas, Edward and Clarence Scott of Philadelphia were successful at marketing small rolls of perforated paper, the Web sites say. It was the beginning of the Scott Paper Co.