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As we approach our October events, your editor is reminded that two people were brought to my attention directly before the 2007 te bach – they were looking for someone who could help them create a house name in Welsh – I suggested they be referred to WSCO member and CWSS language coach, Shirley McKee, who I knew was in attendance that day.
Not too long after that, Laura Thomas, another CWSS member and my able te bach beverage assistant, made me aware of a website to help create a Welsh name for your house: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/livinginwales/nameyourhouse/.
Give it a try! It’s fun to work your way through and if it comes up with names that don’t quite fit your situation, at least you have suggestions and you can find a dictionary and substitute words. For instance, I included among my choices the word “trees,” and suggestions given by the website were “Yr Ywen/The Yew Tree” and “Y Fedwen/The Birch Tree.”
Well, I have neither of those trees, but I could search for the trees I do have in my yard, if Lindens, Sweetgums and Redbuds grow in Wales and have Welsh names. Or I could just plant a yew or a birch.
Maybe I’ll try it again and see what comes up for “a little brown house with some trees and lots of flowers and a small pond in the yard.”
Words that Derive from Welsh
(listed in the July-Sept. 2008 issue, page 19)
balderdash (rubbish; nonsense; senseless words) -- may derive from the Welsh word baldorddu;
bard – from Welsh word bardd
brock (badger) – from Old British brokkos meaning a badger
Radnor, Ohio, -- the beginning
“The first man to settle in the Radnor area was
Henry Perry. He came originally from North Wales but by the turn of the
nineteenth century he was living in Baltimore with his wife and children. … in
1803 he traveled more than 500 miles with his two sons … chose a suitable
location to build a wood cabin and over winter they proceeded to clear some
acres of land.
Henry Perry returned to Baltimore during the spring of 1804 leaving the sons in
charge of the cabin and the crops they had planted. He then returned to Radnor
with his wife and his other children.”
Excerpted from an article by Rev. B. W. Chidlaw, published on The Wales-Ohio Project website, page http://ohio.llgc.org.uk/co-delaware.php#subhead1.
WSCO
What do Radnor and WSCO have “in common?” Some descendants of early Radnor-area residents are WSCO members, like Laura Thomas and Bob Penry, and some WSCO members were born in Radnor, for instance Ann Robinson Humphreys, Ann Price Gillard and John Davids.
What do, specifically, Radnor pioneer settler Henry Perry and WSCO “share?” Jim Gillard -- six generations down from Henry Perry.
Were Ann Price and Jim Gillard childhood sweethearts? Nope – they never even knew each other. Jim’s Perry grandparents moved to Akron when Arlene, Jim’s mother-to-be, was a young child.
A series of “What if that hadn’t happened??” events
Ann Price’s career-Air-Force brother called her at work one day and asked her to help find a rental house in Delaware, Ohio, for him to move his family into. While Ann was still on the phone with her brother, the mail carrier walked into the office and she turned and asked him if he knew of a house for rent. As luck would have it, he owned a piece of property that had not yet been advertised for rent and he offered to take her to view it. It was perfect and the Price family moved in.
Across the street from the Price home was the house that Jim’s retired grandparents moved to when they left Akron. Jim, who was also in the Air Force, ended up at Ohio Wesleyan, in Delaware, where the Air Force sent him to finish his last year of college, and he visited his grandparents as often as he could.
Jim’s grandmother and Ann’s sister-in-law became friends and decided to try to get Jim and Ann together for a blind date. With a bit of gentle arm-twisting the two not-necessarily-reluctant but also not-especially-gung-ho blind date participants met. Ann had even asked her cousin John Davids to please double-date with them.
Three months later, Ann and Jim were married and they are celebrating their 55th anniversary this year.
P.S.
Jim didn’t even know he was descended from Henry Perry until Ann’s godmother, a Radnor historian, held Ann and Jim’s first-born Michael Gillard and commented, as she rocked the baby in her arms, that he was the 7th generation direct descendant of the first settler of Radnor.