The Cropper Collections
In Small Things Used Each Day
There are three main Cropper collections to see. We display items that were important to the life of Wilma Cropper in the upstairs rooms of the Mansion.
Bill Cropper collected things early, often and over a long time. His collection was admittedly eclectic, but done with purpose in mind.
Bill went to yard sales, estate sales, auctions and other venues to find his items. Some of collection of clocks of the late 19th and into the 20th century are in the visitors center. Some of his collection of framed Americana also hang on the walls there.
Bill's most interesting collection is in the basement of the Mansion. His collection of kitchen and food processing implements is exhaustive. If you look at them as a whole, they start looking a lot alike and the tendency is to move on to another group where the same thing happens. But, if you look at them as individuals within a group, you end up seeing what museologists and archaeologists call a study or type collection. In the early days of hand powered food processors, there were dozens of competitors, all of which did the same thing, but were different enough for a patent to be issued. Bill has one of each and it is fascinating to look at each one and compare it with the next to see the sometimes minute differences that separate them. The vast majority of these items are not made any more, having been replaced by electric versions that do the same but without so much human effort. Still, there's something interesting in the way that form follows function. We still have items that we have no idea what they did for a living.