In their diaries and letters, many early prairie settler women bemoaned the lack of beauty in their homes, and missed the lace curtains, fine china, and wallpaper of “back home”. They made do.

Excerpt letter to the Editor of the Grain Growers Guide from “Wolf-Willow”, 16 August 1916, "Make it Homelike"
"Alack, there were just the boards on the walls and the bare studs...I determined to lighten it up some-how. I did the studding on the walls with the alabastrine, then tacked the cream building paper between the studding…. But I did not like the raw look along the border, so I fared up into the attic, where lay a pile of Saturday Evening Posts. You know what nice cover designs they have. Well I cut out a lot of these carefully…and these I pasted at regular intervals in a sort of frieze all around the room. At a trifling cost the kitchen is cheerful and pleasant."

Excerpt from Esther G. (Vann) Cooper’s memoir of 1912:
"As long as we lived on the farm, the outhouse was our only bathroom. The good old Eaton’s catalogue used to contain samples of wallpaper for customers to choose from. These I cut out and my outhouse was lined inside with these samples. By blending the different colours the finished product looked quite artistic."
Esther came from Kirkby Mallory, Leicestershire, England in 1912 to Pangman SK with her husband Joseph. (Saskatchewan Archives # R-E539/file#018)

Excerpt from Alda Dale (Black) Randall’s diary, May 9, 1920
Photo: Alda Dale Randall, High Prairie, [1920]
"Oh I can take my blue dress – the light silk & cotton I wore in Wyoming and make curtains & with yellow under curtains of cheese cloth it will be lovely!"
Dale came from North Dakota, USA to southern Alberta with her husband Guy and family in 1917 and then to the High Prairie area of Alberta in 1919.
(Provincial Archives of Alberta # PR1994.0202)