In photography, Thelma Pepper found a capacity to peer into other lives and to find in them a celebraiton of the human spirit.

Thelma Stevens Pepper was born in 1920. A century later—from her adoptive home in Saskatoon—she reflects on a hundred years of life, love, and pictures.

At 60, it was creativity and passion that rescued Thelma Pepper from the depths of depression. With her kids grown and gone, she was floundering, wondering who she was, and what she was meant to do. In photography, she found what her father and grandfather before her had found and that was a capacity to peer into other lives and to find in them a celebration of the human spirit.

It was that commitment to capturing the human condition that led to her work not only being celebrated here in Canada but around the world. In these noble lives, she found herself.

Amy Jo Ehman is an award-winning author and journalist. Her previous books include Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens and Prairie Feast: A Writer's Journey Home for Dinner, as well as a pictorial history of Saskatoon. She is recipient of a Saskatchewan Book Award and was shortlisted for Taste Canada and High Plains book awards. As a writer, she loves to explore the intersection of history and the present day. Thelma Pepper provided that in spades.

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EVOCATIVE
"As Amy Jo Ehman's book richly details, Thelma Pepper's early beginnings in rural Nova Scotia are never far from her adult life and artistic insights, which crystallized in her adopted Saskatchewan. An astute witness who deftly traverses the distances between herself, her subjects, and the viewer, Pepper's photographs are infused with everyday people and narratives in specific social realities. In her evocative portraits and panoramas we see the human scale of our interwoven histories: on some level we know the people, vulnerabilities, and resilience she brings into focus. An intimacy of connection, community, and identity are sealed within these images." —Joan Borsa, curator, writer, and Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History, University of Saskatchewan

POWERFUL
"Amy Jo Ehman has deeply understood why Thelma Pepper's photographs speak so powerfully: they show how our ordinary world is in fact never ordinary. What makes Thelma Pepper's photographs so powerful is how she opens our eyes to the beauty that surrounds us and that we may take for granted. Ehman takes us into Thelma's world, a Saskatchewan where beauty and stories are always present, patiently waiting to be seen and heard." —David Gutnick, CBC radio documentary producer and writer. He spent his summers on his grandparents' farm in Mozart.