Joe Foggin was the eight child born to Thomas Foggin and Mary
Powell Foggin in Acomb, Yorkshire, England on the 18th day of
February 1888.

He was educated in the same place and when old enough went
to work on a farm in Leeds, England, where he stayed until
1910 then he came to Canada. While on this farm in Leeds
he met and courted Florence Binns.

Florence was the third child of Joseph and Zilla Binns of
Stillingfleet, Yorkshire, born on the 14th of June, 1888. When
she was sixteen years old she went into training for a nurse.
When she completed her training she nursed in different
parts of England until 1912.

Joe and Ernest Dalton came to Canada together in 1910.
Ernest Dalton had been to Canada before for a short time,
and he told Joe Canada is where they ought to be, so they
left England.

They worked on farms and at anythng they could find that
would bring them further west. They finally wound up in
Lethbridge about 1911, and worked there until the Lease
Country, as it was known then, was thrown open for
homestead.

There were many people wanting homesteads, so they
had quite a line-up at the land office in Lethbridge. For
the first few days they had to stay in line or get
someone to stand in for them, or they would lose their
place. This was while they were waiting for the day the
land was thrown open. They were finally given a number
so they didn't have to stay there steady.

Joe and Ernest filed on the same section-Sec.9-1-21. So
now these fellows had a homestead they figured it was
time they had wives. So their girl friends came over from
England. They were Florence Binns and Florence
Douthwaite.

They were married June Ist, 1912 in Lethbridge, Alberta.
That summer they started their homestead life. The first
thing was to get a place to live, so they built a one-room
shack of shiplap. This lumber had to be hauled from Raley.

They soon found out the Government hadn't given them
something for nothing. It was a two day trip to Magrath
and sometimes a lot more, depending on the weather.
There were no roads and no bridges over the river.
Sometimes the wagon box went floating downstream.

They walked to Taylorville for their mail for the first while.

The grass was as high as the hubs on a wagon wheel
and it was awful hard for the homesteaders to find the
section stakes. In later years this area was divided
into school districts known as Shanks Lake, Twin River,
Del Bonita, Lens and Rinard.

In order to prove up on their homestead the'y had to live
on it for six months of the year. So Joe and Florence
worked out on ranches part time and she worked at
nursing in order to buy horses, cattle, etc. Horses were
needed most as they had to break thirty acres of ground
the first three years or ten acres a year to prove up
(to get their title).

They had to sort of pool their horses in order to get six
head; enough to pull a breaking plow. Joe did quite a
lot of breaking as he had some farm experience. Some of
the neighbors, especially those from overseas, had
never been on a farm, so they helped one another.
Some were barbers, carpenters, shoemakers,
blacksmiths, waiters, and even lawyers. They all
helped one another to get started. A homesteader's
shack was never locked in case it might storm or
someone was lost or hungry.

In 1914 the first World War broke out. Joe joined
the army along with some of his neighbors and went
overseas in 1915. His outfit was the Princess
Patricia Light Infantry. Florence and small son,
were left to hold down the homestead. She arranged
for neighbors, mostly Bill Tyler and Gene Robinson,
to put in the crop and do the harvesting. She had
a horse and a single buggy, so she could get around
pretty well to go on midwife calls etc. She brought
quite a number of babies into the world in those
early days.

Joe was gone for about two years and then he was
discharged on account of his eye-sight and came
back to resume farming. In 1922 they built a new
house and barn and moved out of the old homestead
shack that had become two rooms about 1918. They
were active in community affairs. They both served on
the school board at different times. Florence was a
member of the first Del Bonita Women's Institute.
Joe was a strong supporter of Social Credit.
Florence boarded two or three school teachers
and one United Church Minister.

They sold the old homestead to Les and Margaret
Dalton in 1947 and retired to Lethbridge. They came
back to Del Bonita to help celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the homestead country. They also
came back to celebrate their 50th wedding
anniversary in 1962.

They had three sons.

They had fifteen grandchildren and twenty-eight
great-grandchildren.

Joe passed away on the 7th of August, 1964, at the
age of seventy-six years. Florence passed away
December 31st, 1971, at the age of eighty-three years.