A History of the Foote-Copeland District
By: Gordon D. Hatton

During the depression years know worldwide as the 'Dirty Thirties' I wrote two personal diaries using some old Monarch school scribbler notebooks. These are the one's with illustrations on the front and math tables on the back cover. The illustrations on mine were of a child with a Baby Chick and a tee-pee with Indians sitting around a campfire smoking a pipe, hence the names Chicks and Pow-Wow. My diaries are a daily compilation of my recollections of life as it was on the prairies when I was a young lad of 17. The diaries cover the year 1933, January till October.

Preface:
In 1906 my father David Henry Hatton along with his two brothers traveled out West from Ontario and applied for Canadian Homestead Patents in an area later to be called the Foote-Copeland school district in the Royal Municipality of Big Quill.  Saskatchewan had just become a province the previous year.

My uncle's names were William Hatton and James L. Hatton. They both received 160 acres of land beside each other on NE and NW 10.31.18.W2.  Dad applied for NW.16 which was two miles North West of his brothers.  Another younger uncle Albert W. Hatton never applied for a patent in Copeland.

I, Gordon David Hatton was born in our farmhouse on section 10 four years later on June 29, 1915, two years after my brother Clarence Samuel Hatton.  My birth was registered in Regina at a much later date, and my parents never received my Birth Certificate until August 19, 1927 when I was 12.  Mother lost a baby boy in childbirth a year before Clarence and was one of the first persons to be interned at the Copeland Cemetery. My middle name came of course from my father David, and Clarence was named after our Irish grandfather Samuel Hatton.  Our Great Grandfathers name also was Samuel.

Mom and Dad had a profound reverence for God and were members of the Foote-Copeland United Church. Services were held each Sunday at Foote School on NW.20.31.18.  Clarence and I were taught the ways of the Lord and were trained by my father and mother for the hard work that comes with farm life. It was a life I learned to love and enjoy.

When I was 16 years old, I left school to work full time on the farm after attaining my grade eight at Copeland school. I received my grade eight diploma on August 1st, 1930 and the following year on July 14th I passed all the subjects required by the Saskatchewan Department of Education for my grade 9 equivalency with the exception of French and Algebra, but I never did receive my diploma for grade nine.