Glenys James speaks to Margaret Ann Lewis.

Description

Glenys James talks to Margaret Ann Lewis who was born in Patagonia. Her parents originally from Mold and Abergele, travelled on the ‘Vesta’ after hearing about others seeking a new life in the settlement. Her father, one of the first engineers on the railway line between Port Madryn and Trelew, received first class tickets on the train when they left for Canada, thanks for his work. Reportedly the first ‘White’ child born in Port Madryn, Mrs Lewis learnt Welsh by conversing with the other settlers, but was taught Spanish at school, sings a Spanish song-game that she learnt there. Her father decided to move the family as he did not agree with the Spanish government’s conscription of boys at 18 years of age. He also believed that he never received the land that had been promised to him. The boat journey to Liverpool took a month, and Mrs Lewis recalls her nine-month-old sister learning to walk on the swaying ship. She remembers the harsh winters in Canada and how what they had thought to be substantial coats brought with them from Patagonia, turned out to only be summer coats. The settlement in Llewelyn, and the Welsh choirs provided a strong community for the settlers in the early days. Mrs Lewis, despite being born in Patagonia, living most of her life in Canada and only having visited the motherland twice, believes that she is absolutely Welsh and ‘feels it in her blood.’