Beatrice Mary Gillet was born in Bridgend, South Wales, Great Britain on April 21, 1893. Her father, J.E. Gillet died when she was a baby. Beatrice received most of her education in Wales. During her teens, she worked in the Chemist Shop (drugstore) of her father's sister and husband, Mr. and Mrs. Hicken of Birkenhead. In September 1919, Arthur R. Hadland of Woodnorth, Manitoba returned to Great Britain to visit relatives and in February 1920, he married Beatrice in Wales at her half sister Edith's home. Arthur took Beatrice to live at his farm in Woodnorth.

In 1927, Arthur and his brother, Bert, took a scouting trip to the Peace River Block to file on homesteads. In June 1928, he and Beatrice with their three sons, Austin, Dick and Roger came to Baldonnel, BC and lived one and a half miles south of Baldonnel Corner.

Beatrice had a good voice and was often asked to lead the singing at church and social functions. She was a good homemaker. She churned butter, baked bread, grew a good garden and canned about three hundred quarts in all of vegetables, raspberries, strawberries, saskatoons, pork and beef.

Beatrice was a kind person known for her hospitality, especially by the bachelors who lived on neighbouring homesteads. They visited her family frequently and enjoyed hearty home-cooked meals. Visitors were always welcomed with her ready smile and cheerful countenance.

Beatrice had been a Methodist in Wales but was confirmed in to the Anglican faith at St. John's Church Hall at Baldonnel on August 1, 1937 by the Bishop George Rix. She attended the church in Baldonnel and the Church of the Good Shepherd at Taylor and worked for both auxiliaries at different times.

Farmer's wives used to accompany their husbands to the Farmer's Institute meetings in the early 1930's to serve lunch. As a result, the ladies formed an affiliate, the Baldonnel Women's Institute. Mr. Abbott, who operated the Dominion Experimental Station (north of Baldonnel Corner) at the time, helped the ladies obtain the charter in November 1935. Beatrice was the first president and held other directorships. She was a delegate to the Provincial Women's Institutes Convention at Vancouver in 1940.

During World War II, the ladies of the Baldonnel Women's Institute knitted socks and mitts and sent them along with food parcels to the servicemen in cooperation with the Red Cross Society.

Beatrice was a real humanitarian who was always concerned about the health and welfare of others. There was a lack of civilian medical doctors in 1944 so, on her own recognizance, she walked many miles in the Baldonnel area to obtain signatures of the homesteaders to petition the Provincial Government to hire medical doctors for the Peace River area. This was her last effort made on behalf of her fellow citizens. She passed on at Providence Hospital, Fort St. John an March 2, 1944 due to complications from a gall bladder operation she had in 1943 by an army doctor.

She was buried at the Peace Valley Cemetery at Taylor, BC.

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