Maggie Cassidy at the World Famous Salt Pepper Museum Credit: Melissa Pasanen Like many collectors, Maggie Cassidy tried — and failed — to set limits for herself. She established a rule that her salt and pepper shaker collection had to fit on the kitchen display shelves of the White River J unction home she shares with her husband, Chico Eastridge. But the quirky parade of more than 300 pairs of animals, cartoon characters and miniature everyday objects — umbrellas to skillets — soon marched well beyond that room. “I was completely breaking the rules,” Cassidy said. “It was getting to be a problem.” Inspired by visits to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and the World Famous Crochet Museum in Joshua Tree, Calif., Cassidy dreamed of opening her own small, free museum. She bought a room-size, hand-built wooden box trailer for $500 and painted it shades of black raspberry creemee. Eastridge installed shelves inside the San Francisco trolley-like structure and fitted the upper open sides with plexiglass as a birthday gift. The World Famous Salt Pepper Shaker Museum spent nine months attracting occasional visits outside the couple’s home before it moved and reopened in early June in front of KIS Thrift in Wilder. There, it has drawn a steady stream of guests, including photographer Liza Lynehan, whose August 29 Instagram post about the museum has racked up 4.2 million views. Cassidy was a bit surprised when the video went viral but is not shocked by the appeal of her shakers, all gifts or thrifted for less than $5. “There’s something about the kitsch of it,” she mused, pointing out a set of dollhouse-size radiators and an open fridge paired with a woman in hair rollers and a bathrobe. “It’s fun to see what people have thought of to put a little bit of personality in something we use every day.” The 38-year-old former editor of the Valley News and managing editor of VTDigger balances freelance writing with a part-time job as marketing manager for KIS Thrift store and its associated estate clean-out business. If Cassidy is around and on a break, visitors might be in luck and she will open the padlocked doors. If not, they must settle for peering in through the windows. Salt and pepper shakers on display Credit: Melissa Pasanen The plexiglass provides a decent view of the collection, which includes praying nuns, one in a black habit and one in white; glowing red glass strawberries hanging from a silver vine; a grinning ceramic cowboy whose head shakes salt and hat shakes pepper; and a Noah’s ark of small animal pairs. (There are so many, in fact, that Cassidy separates bow-tied crocodiles, beret-topped seagulls and their sartorially elegant friends into a specific “well-dressed animals” section.) For those who will only be satisfied by close inspection of, say, a fat cat (salt) riding in a fish-shaped car (pepper) or slices of white and pumpernickel bread in a mini chrome toaster, both narrow doors will be unlocked during a grand opening event on Saturday, November 7. There will also be live music, food, swag and a raffle of two-of-a-kind gorilla shakers crafted by Mary Arnold of Victory Pottery in White River Junction. Proceeds benefit the local Bugbee Senior Center — “the salt and peppers of our community,” according to Cassidy. (Raffle tickets can also be bought online at the museum website.) Those who duck their heads to enter the low-ceilinged museum will spy a photo of a young Cassidy beaming over a birthday candle with her family’s prized shaker set of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf in the foreground. They might be the source of Cassidy’s shaker fascination, she said, although she really can’t recall. The family heirlooms are too precious to entrust to the trolley, but they don’t get used much at home either, Cassidy said. Her husband, the household’s cook, seasons everything so well, they only rarely add salt at the table. When they do, they generally just pull out the blue Morton canister. ➆ The World Famous Salt Pepper Shaker Museum grand opening, Saturday, November 7, noon to 4 p.m., at KIS Thrift in Wilder. The post World Famous Salt Pepper Shaker Museum Opens in Wilder appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less