Daffodils: Reflecting on Wales

Each March when the first shoots of daffodils poke through the frozen ground, I’m taken back. It’s a celebratory occasion, this hearty flower peering out to mark the nearing end of a harsh winter, and bringing with it the optimism of Spring and all of its new beginnings. 

Our home becomes festive each March 1st, where St. David’s Day is celebrated with a spread that rivals anything attempted for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. 

We didn’t always celebrate it. We didn’t always know much about it. But we do now. 

Five Springs have passed since my dad and I visited Wales, one of the most important journeys I’ll ever take. 

The flag of Wales “Baner y ddraig goch Cymru” from the family of Edward Roberts

European ancestry runs deep in my family, particularly on my father David’s side where three of his four grandparents were native to the continent. I had the pleasure of having my great-grandmother Elizabeth in my life until I was twenty-three years old. She was born in England, exceptionally bright, warm and caring, and for whom I’d do anything to hear a story from today. 

Her husband, Edward Roberts, who passed away before I was born, spent the first two decades of his life in Wales, having been born there in 1902. My grandmother, Nancy, was thus the product of many of the rest of depression era America, the story of immigrant families who left one life for another, settling into a new world of opportunity. 

Edward Roberts was a coal miner in Wales, beginning as a child, and working there until labor strikes led to a collapse of the industry around the time of the great depression. 

Due to these changes, swaths of British immigrants came to America seeking work, and in time, upwards of twenty family members on both Edward and Elizabeth's sides of the family would make their homes on the east side of Flint, Michigan, working for General Motors. 

My great-uncle David asked his father Edward once, what it was that ultimately made him leave. 

“You must make a choice, when the right opportunity presents itself,” he said.

New beginnings: Edward and Elizabeth Roberts with their two eldest children, Bette and Nancy, in Flint, Michigan in 1935

Personal belongings of Edward Roberts

Wales was a place I always wished to visit, if only for the fact that I had heard so much about it growing up. Stories from my grandma, so proud of her British heritage.

Tales of her father, and how though he didn’t speak Welsh often, he would sing her to sleep with his beautiful tenor voice in his native tongue. How beautiful it was in Wales, and how her father and uncles lamented in later life over wishing to return.

Various remnants and trinkets of Edward’s are treasured to this day. Old coins, and a hand stitched leather wallet with Edward’s initials that he received from his own father prior to leaving for foreign soil. Cookie tins from the turn of the century, various dragon laden items, including a linen flag that now hangs prominently in our home. Many of these things were given to my dad, and have made their way to me. 

When my love of travel and genealogy seemed to join forces about a decade ago, Wales became an obvious must visit. 

Though I had been previously, my dad had at that point never been to Europe. For his 60th birthday however, we planned a trip to the United Kingdom.

We visited Scotland, England and Wales, playing golf and exploring the countryside, culminating in an extended visit to the town where his grandfather Edward was born and raised, Southsea, an industrial village in the north of Wales.

Roberts siblings on the front porch of their home in Southsea in 1906. Edward stands in the back, at left

We approached a door on New Road, flat number 2. Before we could knock however, a man emerged from inside, puzzled, but smiling. 

“Help you lads?” a gruff old man asked, who then introduced himself as Evan.

We explained our journey, that it was here where my dad’s Grandpa Roberts had grown up before departing for North America in the late 1920s, and that we had made the reverse pilgrimage to return to our roots. We gave a bit of background, how the Roberts boys, beginning at the age of 12, walked from this flat just a few hundred yards down the road to the Plas Colliery, a once bustling coal mine that still has many explorable ruins, and where we had just spent the better part of the afternoon. 

Evan knew all about the ruins, which should have seemed obvious to me as they were as much to the town as Big Ben is to London.

We pulled out an image of the Roberts’ siblings standing on the very same steps we were on currently, and all four of us (Evan’s wife Jane now joining to say hello) shared a warm moment of awe and reflection. 

It was a brief encounter, and then we went on our way wandering the streets. 

My father David outside of the same Roberts family home in 2015

We made our way to the local cemetery, and within seconds, located the graves of many of Edward’s ancestors; his parents and a few siblings. We laid a daffodil at the grave of his mother, who had died while giving birth to Edward’s youngest brother. 

Meeting the residents of the home gave us that “would this be us had Edward not left?” type of feeling, one of many reflections that afternoon. The town was both subtly beautiful, quaint, yet sad. Remnants of the coal mine show how challenging life must have been for any family that grew up there, and how far the town had fallen once that industry died. It wasn't unlike the feeling I have traveling through various parts of my home town of Flint, Michigan where I grew up, seeing bits and pieces of its former industrial glory, left to ruin. 

Southsea was a true working class epicenter. Rows of identical flats lead to the mine site, but in equal proximity, close enough to more beautiful scenes. These places were out of a fairy tale, with long names you can’t pronounce no matter how hard you try, with sparkling rivers, expansive green valleys with rolling hills, dotted with ancient rocks and castle ruins. 

Plas Power Colliery ruins

Roberts family headstones at All Saints Cemetery in Southea

Sunset over the River Dee in nearby Llangollen

We climbed the Castell Dinas Brân site the next afternoon in nearby Llangollen and soaked up the vast landscape below, which extended for many miles in all directions. Another feeling hit us both. We felt it in our core, that this was a part of us somehow. 

I've visited many places, but have never felt anything quite like I did in Wales. Some subconscious thing in our DNA telling us that this was, in fact, our home. We were like migrating birds, just knowing somehow, without any other explanation, where to go, and where to belong.

There were flashes of guilt on that hill.

How could someone leave something as beautiful as this? Have we made them proud with how we've lived our lives?  Was it all worth it? 

It of course comes down to opportunity, and America afforded quite a bit of it to our ancestors. But make no mistake about it, if there's one thing that keeps being reinforced each time I travel abroad, it's that as great as America is, many of the places our ancestors left to make their journey to the States, are just as great, and oftentimes far more majestic and beautiful than anything they’d find in America.

It hits you hard when you experience it, the idea of “American Exceptionalism” being exposed as an antiquated ideal that has more questions than truths.

Gone with the guilt was a new realization, that as easily as our forefathers came from Wales to America, we would just as easily enjoy going back if we had to. It was home afterall, where we felt like we belonged.

Castell Dinas Brân

My father David just before a setting sun, looking over the landscape from Castell Dinas Brân

Llangollen from above

St. David’s Day is to Wales what St. Patrick's Day is to Ireland, the celebration of the patron Saint of their nation, with all of the festivities and celebrations we come to know about the Irish.

For the Welsh, the first day of March marks this occasion, and as we learned on our visit, it’s quite the occasion at that, lingering for weeks in celebratory spirit.

As we wished to bring this tradition into the forefront of our own lives going forward, we quickly realized how strong the foundation had already been laid.

A key centerpiece of the day is the daffodil, the national flower of Wales. Spend any amount of time there and you'll know why. They cover the countryside by the thousands, nay - millions, much like the dandelion in an unkempt lawn at home.

It seems fitting that that next spring, the sign of the first daffodil brought us instantly back to that magical place, where one can still picture fields of yellow for as far as the eye can see. The same feeling happens each year, time and time again, in a way that is almost hard to explain, but that happens as regularly as clockwork. 

Another vital centerpiece of St. David’s Day is the feast, and though not explicitly created nor regularly consumed in our home growing up, recipes lingered deep within family lore.

Soups with parsnips, toasted breads spread with sharp cheeses, sweets with dried fruits. These are staples of St. David’s Day; Cawl, Rarebit and Welsh Cakes, all of which are being prepped to be consumed this evening.

And fitting that my father, David, named for his uncle David, (who himself is named after at least five generations of David’s throughout the family tree) would be named after the patron Saint himself. My dad rather enjoys the fact that he “has his own holiday.”

Traditions for the next generations: David Cameron, Matthew Cameron, and Cameron Rhys

If for nothing else, the trip to Wales was a once in a lifetime chance to spend time with my dad exploring our roots together. We “wowed” together, experienced the emotional pull of feeling like we belonged in Wales, together.

Wherever our travels take us in the future, Wales will always be the most memorable its in own way. As we move forward, we look upon our journey fondly, forever remembering our time spent there, and those who came before us.

It's hard to quantify if I have lived up to the hopes and dreams of my ancestors. I’m not exactly sure, but I hope so. Their sacrifices have given us opportunities for which we can never repay. Only to pay forward, and to honor them. To honor them, is to remember them.

So we do those things, and we celebrate them. And each passing Spring, I’ll enjoy the daffodils, longing to return to the place where they line the landscape by the millions. 

I’ll take my own family there someday. Perhaps we’ll even stay. 

That is, if the right opportunity presents itself. 

For now, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Dewi a'r ddraig