"The Ellis Island, New York registry from 1916 said my grandmother was fair skinned and petite. She was very small, but what a wonderful mind and inner strength common for the Welsh people.

She came to America when she was twenty-one years old and it was in the middle of World War I. The Germans were sinking all types of shipping.

I can only imagine it took her a lot of courage to travel from Aberystwyth to Liverpool. Then on to New York and Ellis Island where all immigrants had to register to enter the country.

She came to live with her two aunts in New Cambria, Missouri, but she kept up a constant flow of images, post cards, and letters with our Edwards relatives and friends in Aberystwyth and surrounding areas.

My mother and sister visited Mid Wales in 1967 right after my grandmother passed away at 72 years old. Then I helped put together two more trips in 1991 with my mother, aunt, and uncle, and again in 1999 with my mother, and younger sister.

You only need five minutes to fall in love with Wales. The castles I expected and was excited to see, but to find myself surrounded by green beautiful hills, mountains, meadows, and dark mysterious woods left me forever inspired.

I'm far from being a very good photographer as you will see, but I hope you might get a small glimpse of what we enjoyed through these old images from 1900 to 1937. Also the comparative images from our trips, where a few were taken of the exact same areas.

My great uncle was John Caleb Edwards was the Mayor of Aberystwyth when Prince Charles attended the University of Wales to learn the Welsh language in 1969.

I went to meet him for the first time in 1990 and he was elderly, but extremely kind to me. He took me to his favorite rugby park and showed me around Aberystwyth on foot.

He has passed on, yet his daughter and her husband Richard and Kathleen (Edwards) Webster still live there, as well as his son David Edwards and his family. Wonderful people and great representatives of the Welsh life."

Article by Roy Lilly