Theresa's Salt & Pepper Shakers
1,212 Pairs and Counting

Good day, and thank you for coming to see my collection.

My name is Theresa Green. I am 86 years old, and I have lived in Terre Haute, Indiana, all my life. My granddaughter Sarah, who teaches school, took these pictures this summer with a camera that puts them on a computer diskette, and she set up this page for me. I have typed every word of it myself, with two fingers. It has taken me most of August and part of September, so I hope you will read it slowly too.

How It Began

My husband Francis was a conductor on the railroad. In the summer of 1946 we drove down to Kentucky to see his cousins, and on the way home he pulled over at a roadside stand and came back to the car with a little paper sack. Inside were two black Scottie dogs, salt and pepper, not two inches tall, with little red collars. He said they reminded him of us, because they could not be separated. I put them on the kitchen windowsill, and that was the first pair.

Francis passed away in 1979. The Scotties are still on my kitchen table.

Here I am at the kitchen table with my Scotties. You can see some of the kitchen shelves behind me.

After that, Francis brought me a pair from every trip, and then the children did, and then the grandchildren, and then people I did not even know very well. When word gets around that you collect something, it comes to you. I now have 1,212 pairs, which is 2,424 shakers, which Sarah worked out on her calculator, and I could have told her that.

Where They Live

They are in seven glass-front cabinets in the dining room, and on the narrow shelves Francis built all the way around the top of the kitchen walls, up near the ceiling, in 1958, when the cabinets got full the first time. I have not eaten a meal in the dining room since about 1975. We eat in the kitchen.

Four of the seven cabinets, on the long wall of the dining room. You can see into the kitchen on the right.

Cabinet by Cabinet

Cabinet 1, Dogs and Cats. This is where the Scotties would be if they were not on the kitchen table. Poodles, cocker spaniels, a pair of dachshunds that are one long dog in two pieces, Siamese cats, a cat and a fishbowl, and a dog and his doghouse. My favorite is a pair of bulldogs in sailor hats that my son John won for me at the state fair in 1952 by knocking down milk bottles.

Cabinet 2, Farm Animals and Birds. Pigs, cows, chickens, roosters, ducks, owls by the dozen, and two very proud turkeys.

One shelf of my animals: pigs, cows, kitty cats, owls, ducks and bears. The cats are really from Cabinet 1, but Sarah moved them over for the picture because she said they looked nice with the owls. They have been put back.

Cabinet 3, Fruits and Vegetables. Ears of corn, tomatoes, pears, peas in the pod, strawberries, bananas, carrots, eggplants, and a pair of watermelon slices. Somebody asked me once why anybody would want a salt shaker shaped like an eggplant. I said, why not?

The vegetable shelf. That bright light in the mirror at the back of the cabinet is Sarah's flash, and the shape behind it is Sarah.

Cabinet 4, Huggers. A hugger is a pair made to lean into each other and fit together, so the two of them look like one piece: two bears with their arms around each other, a boy and a girl kissing, two rabbits. They were very popular after the war. These are the ones I would grab in a fire, after the Scotties.

Cabinet 5, Nodders. A nodder is a pair that sits in a little base, and the shakers rock back and forth when you touch them, like they are nodding at you. They are the hardest to find in good condition because the base gets lost or broken. I have 96.

Cabinet 6, The States. Every vacation we took, Francis and the children and I, we brought back a pair from every state we drove through. Oranges from Florida, potatoes from Idaho, cactus from Arizona, lighthouses from Maine, buffalo from Wyoming. We drove through forty-one states over the years, and I have at least one pair from every one of them, and several from Kentucky, because we went there so often.

Cabinet 7, People and Odds and Ends. A little stove and refrigerator, a toaster, a pair of rolling pins, a Dutch boy and girl, Christmas trees, snowmen, Halloween pumpkins, and two tiny shakers no bigger than a fingernail that you need a magnifying glass to fill.

The Kitchen Shelves. The big ones that would not fit in the cabinets, and the ones I like to look at while I wash dishes.

My Rules

No duplicates. I keep one of each pair, and only one. My family knows to ask me before they buy one. If somebody gives me a pair I already have, I thank them very kindly and give it to the church rummage sale, and they never know.

A pair is a pair. If one breaks, they both go, unless I can glue it so you would never know. Francis used to say I am more careful about the shakers than I was about the children. That is not true. It is not entirely true.

Dusting

Every spring and every fall I dust them all, one cabinet a day. I put a towel on the dining room table and a dishpan of warm water with a drop of dish soap, and I wash each one and dry it with a soft paintbrush so I do not knock anything off. It takes me a week. My granddaughters help now, because my hands shake a little, and they are very good about it, and nothing has been broken in three years, except one owl, and that was the cat.

What Are They Worth?

People ask me this all the time, and the answer is very little. Most of them cost a dollar or two when they were new, and some of them cost ten cents. A few of the old ones might be worth something to a collector now, I am told. I have never sold a single pair and I never will. That is not the point. The point is that every one of them came from somewhere and somebody, and I remember almost every one.

Someday

I have three children, John, Leroy and Marsha, and seven grandchildren: Roxanne, Renee, Sarah, Amy, Bobby, Drew and Michael. There are seven grandchildren and seven cabinets, and I do not believe that is an accident. Someday, when I am gone, the grandchildren are going to put their names in a hat and each one will draw a cabinet. Whoever wants the kitchen shelves can have them. Sarah says she wants the huggers. I have told her it is a drawing, not a request. But I hope she gets them.

Thank you for visiting. If you collect salt and pepper shakers too, I would be very glad to hear from you, and if you have a pair you think I do not have, please write first.

Theresa Green