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The mid to late 19th Century saw a massive increase in emigration from Europe to the United States. Sometimes it was for religious reasons like the Mormons or to escape political persecution as in Russia and Eastern Europe. More often however it was simply a desire to seek your fortune and a new life in the exciting expanding economy of the new world. Often these dreams ended in disillusionment and sadness. For others by dint of ambition and hard work, they achieved their goals and ended up with great success and a life style they might have not achieved had they stayed in Europe. Wales provided its share of ambitious emigrants, and there are many stories of Welsh men and women who did extremely well in their new homeland. One such story that involved a family from Carmarthenshire is that of Jane Rees and her brothers, Thomas, Charles, and James. They came from a well-known Lower St Clears family, several of whom were burgesses and involved in the towns affairs. Their grandfather John and father David were builders and cabinetmakers.
Jane was first to emigrate in 1869 leaving to marry a man called Jeremiah Reeves. Jeremiah was a native of Dorset whom she had met whilst he was studying the trade of boiler making and structural iron working in Wales. Jeremiah had emigrated to Pennsylvania two years earlier in 1867, and had already had found work there. On Janes arrival they were married and set up house together. Four years later in 1873, by dint of hard work, Jeremiah and his brother Jabez who had also emigrated managed to start their own boiler works at a town called Niles in the next door state of Ohio. Their success in this encouraged them nine years later to sell their business and take over the operations of the much bigger, but ailing Dover Rolling Mills in the same state in 1883. They renamed the company The Reeves Iron Company with Jeremiah as its head and Jabez as plant superintendent. Again by dint of hard work and business acumen, they had become by 1896 one of the largest employers in that part of Ohio, employing nearly a thousand workers.
By the turn of the century they were so prosperous that Jeremiah and his son Samuel sold the mills to a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. Samuel formed a new company and called it the Reeves Manufacturing Company, which again produced steel and other metal products. Unfortunately Samuel died tragically soon afterwards, and Jeremiah had to come out of retirement to resume control of the company. The new company continued to prosper, building four new mills in 1912, and then branching out into banking, transport and the hotel industries. By now Jeremiah and Jane were extremely wealthy and besides their splendid Dover residence they had a winter home in Palm Springs Florida. Jeremiah died there in 1920 and Jane died there in 1926.
Undoubtedly the success of their sister and brother in law encouraged Janes brothers James, Charles and Thomas to make the same journey across the Atlantic. James and his wife Amelia arrived in Dover in 1892 time of the plants sale to U.S.Steel, its General Superintendent. James following the family tradition was a skilled builder and cabinetmaker having trained in Liverpool and London, and when the plant was sold he used this experience to remodel the beautiful and large mansion, which had been bought by his sister and brother in law.
This splendid house is now known as the J.E.Reeves Victorian Home and Carriage House Museum and was donated by Jane and Jeremiahs last surviving daughter Agnes to the Dover Historical Society. The society was fortunate also to inherit the original furnishings and heirlooms belonging to the house. The society has been able to restore the house accurately and show visitors how the house looked in 1900, when the Reeves family were at the height of their prosperity. I am indebted to Mrs Patti Feller of Dover Ohio U.S.A. Mrs Feller is the Great Grand Daughter of Jane Reess brother Thomas. Mrs Feller is now a guide for visitors to the Reeves home and is able to explain its connections to Wales. It is now 140 years since Jane Rees left St. Clears. Mrs Fellers visit in 2009 has maintained a link with St Clears that has now survived for four generations. Mrs Feller hopes that her grandsons visit will ensure it is carried on for further generations. 
- Jennifer Brodeur
- Brian Y Tarw Lwyd
- Laura Gorun
A new warts-and-all biography tells the full story of Tom Jones' amazing career: his innumerable affairs, his friendship with Elvis, and his brush with Charles Manson. It decscribes how he hit the heights, outselling Frank SInatra at the Copacabana night club, New York and the 5,000 bedroom keys that got thrown at him at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas. However there were many lows as Tom Jones continually reinvented himself from young rock-and-roller in Pontypridd to sixties hip-swiveller to seventies cabaret king, and then, under the strict direction of his own son Mark, to mature rocker and born again gospel singer with the recently released Praise and Blame .
Now 70 years of age, Tom Jones says, "I'll still be belting out tunes when they're trying to nail me down." The biography also highlights Tom's attachment to his Welsh roots and to his wife and childhood sweetheart, Linda Trenchard -- which is, according to the author, "the craziest thing of all in the rascal's ultra-crazy life."
Author Aubrey Malone, says: "Tom is a flawed icon but an irresistible one, going up the down staircase, refusing to stay down for long. His huge belief in himself as The Voice made this the thing people would always remember when the knicker-throwing stopped."
Aubrey Malone has also published biographies of Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski and Brendan Behan. This biography, Still Rockin' , sells for 6.95 and is published by Y Lolfa at www.ylolfa.com .
'When You Smile You'll Be A Dog No More' - An Interview With Paul Steffan Jones
By Ceri Shaw, 2012-11-17
Welsh poet Paul Steffan Jones won this year's (2012) West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition with his entry When You Smile You'll Be A Dog No More . Read the winning entry below. AmeriCymru spoke to Paul about his winning entry and about his work in general.
Paul: Diolch. I am delighted to have won this competition. The poem is a reaction to the death of my mother in July 2011, the Gleision mining disaster later that same year and the 1938 murder of my Treherbert ancestor Thomas Picton by Spanish war criminals. It deals with grief and how it affects the personality and one's core beliefs.
AmeriCymru: How would you describe your relationship with words, with the raw matter of your craft?
Paul: My relationship with words has become more flexible, more trusting over the last two years. I am favouring a partly abstract approach to writing because I feel that what's going on at present in the UK doesn't make much sense and it's my job to reflect that feeling of nonsense to some degree in my work. It's good I feel to deconstruct a narrative so much that the narrative disappears leaving the naked and mad beauty of words that seem not to belong together but somehow work against the odds. I allude to this in When You Smile You'll Be a Dog No More. It is even more challenging when reading this type of poem to an audience. I believe it's important to try to find new ways of conveying messages, creating tension and provoking reaction.
AmeriCymru: Your blog features a number of original works. Will they be anthologised? How satisfactory/useful are digital media for poets?
Paul: Some of my blog writings have appeared in collections and others may do so in the future. I have found that having a blog has provided me with feedback that I would not otherwise have had. It provides additional encouragement in a fairly lonely genre.
Paul: A small number of copies of Lull of The Bull are available at www.starbornbooks.co.uk and a few book shops in West and South Wales.
AmeriCymru: What's next for Paul Steffan Jones?
Paul: My second collection, The Trigger-Happiness, will be published by Starborn Books in the next few weeks. A third collection, Junk Notation, has already been written, a reaction to relationship breakdown, poems punctuated by short stories. I am working at the moment on a potential book called Ministry of Loss which again deals with grief and also the massive population change in rural Wales since the 1960s. I look forward to taking The Trigger-Happiness to a wider audience. I hope that one of its poems will feature in an exhibition in Kyoto, Japan next month.
I will continue to fight the UK Coalition Government's austerity measures from within the ranks of the Trade Union movement.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?
Paul: There are a lot of good but unknown poets in West Wales who deserve to be heard. I'm sure that a similar situation exists in the U.S.A. I would like there to be closer links between lesser-known Welsh and American poets.
When You Smile You'll Be A Dog No More
I wake up
I wake up dead
I had been dreaming of cardboard
home made signs on unclassified roads
which directed me to 20,000 saints
or 20,000 whores
its hard to decide
everything is everything else
nothing is nothing
let me sleep
my bed my kingdom
Im sick of having to make sense
if theres still such a thing
the holes and the cracks
that await filling or recognition
our father gives us brown envelopes
containing our mothers careful accretion
we have all done loot
I will glory in her memory
decorate those who have managed
to live to retirement age
who have lived before death
I am overdue a bombweed and overgrown motte
Grand Tour
with a redundant cinema gravedigger hunchback
to disinter Nazis to kill them all over again
the art of leaning on a farm gate to view
wood lice jigs
the tail end of a hurricane
mould and its cousins
fungicide and its offspring
cry when miners die in the sides of hills
in the tombs of the underworld
in the caress of water
cry when they say your name
when the pain overpowers
when the clues expire
cry as men cry
faces to the wall
the tears of candles
the clowns of town down
the anti-condensation flotilla at full tilt
freelance apologists freely lancing
cwtsh into the huddle
taste her tears so near
impressing me as much
as I had expected
but not in the manner anticipated
women with bruised faces
the views from floors
fight for your smile
you know the one
and I will fight for the right to fail
and the secrets we think we are keeping
removing my shirt though its cool
nakedness of diaphragm
for what I am
the long arms of brambles through fencing
Impressionist paintings in river reflections
the source of the Nile
the source of fibre
persisting with bent nibs
everybody lies
everybody smells
everybody disappoints
this towns got much to answer for
eat what you are
food replaces sex
those poached brains
shopping as sport
lions as lambs
distance will bring us together
Interview by Ceri Shaw
Welsh Music Foundation - ADVANCING 101: HOW TO HAVE A GREAT SHOW BEFORE SOUNDCHECK BEGINS...
By Ceri Shaw, 2011-12-05
Cymraeg yn dilyn (Welsh follows)
Next week were inviting bands, musicians, managers and promoters to hear practical hints and tips on the nuts and bolts of performing at festivals and other gigs. The organisers of Swn are here to help you find out the essentials and understand the jargon involved with playing a show - from sorting out tech specs to learning about input lists...be clued up and prepared for what promoters may ask of you and how to make their (and your own) lives easier.
14th December 2011
16:00 17:00
Dylan Thomas Centre
1 Somerset Place
Swansea
SA1 1RR
(N.b. This is the rescheduled Advancing 101 from 28th October 2011)
Please also see details of our Stakeholder Meeting in Swansea later that day, from 6pm, HERE .
16:00 17:00
Dylan Thomas Centre
1 Somerset Place
Abertawe
SA1 1RR
| Welsh Music Foundation Ltd. 33-35 West Bute StreetCardiff Bay Cardiff CF10 5LH Tel: 029 2049 4110 | |
A highly acclaimed writer and academic, whose memoirs recall scenes from a varied and exciting life in many countries, will again find himself in a politically delicate situation when he takes his new book to the Istanbul Book Fair.
