Chickens have come to roost

Swallows are to Capistrano as chickens are to Kilgore Memorial Library, at least for the month of August. Now through Aug. 31 the extra special, very eclectic chicken collection of Miriam Peterson is on display in the Friends of the Library case.
Don’t worry, there won’t be any feathers flying ... these chicks and chickens are of the glass, wood, tin and ceramic varieties.
Although the exhibit has caused Peterson to have more than a few empty spots in her kitchen, she looks on the bright side saying, “I haven’t had to dress a single one this week.”
Peterson’s extensive chicken collection began as chickens do ... with an egg. “It originally started when I purchased some of those little antique egg cups at a show. Then I bought some candy dishes I liked,” she explains.
It may seem strange but Peterson prefers to be considered a “collector of chickens” rather than a “lover of chickens,”
“When I’d go to grandmas it was my job to gather eggs and help butcher the chickens — I didn’t like either,” Peterson states emphatically. “I didn’t ever like real chickens.”
Despite her dislike of live birds, her collection has grown over the years, due in part to Peterson’s travels. “When we travel I don’t buy many souvenirs, but if I see a small chicken unique to that country I will get it,” she comments. Thus the Peterson collection has come to include birds from China and even a chicken from Turkey.
Many of the Peterson chickens have been gifts, “I think I got to the age my kids never knew what to get me,” she laughs.
The collection which started in the kitchen now spills over into other rooms. Peterson’s husband Chuck affectionately calls the brood, “Miriam’s old dead hens.”
To compliment the flock, Ken Bedient has dressed the Hall Gallery up, hanging colorful reproductions of 1922-1930 illustrations from the Poultry Tribune of Mt. Morris, Ill. Jerry Sandy, a 1951 graduate of York High School, provided Bedient the prints.
The public is invited to stop by Kilgore anytime during regular library hours in order to view the friendly fowl come to roost on library shelves.