Despite being a born and bred Chirker, I read your Memories of Fron with great interest as I am a very keen but very amateur family historian and my mother’s family originates from the Fron.
Well, where shall I start? I suppose chronologically would make sense.
My great great grandparents were Evan and Sarah Williams and Thomas and Letitia Roberts, all of whom at some point lived at Penygraig but later Evan and Sarah went to live at Blaenycwm above Cwmalis Road. I believe at one time this was two cottages but when I came to know it, it had been knocked into one house. Sarah Williams was killed by a motor car in 1928. I believe Letitia's maiden name to be Roberts and I think she was the daughter of William/Thomas Roberts and his wife Mary who also lived at Penygraig. She was married twice, firstly to a Mr. Hughes with whom she had at least five children, William, Jane, Mary, Ellen and Ruth. After being widowed she married Thomas Roberts and had three sons, John Thomas, Richard and William(Will Lettuce). You mention Swan Terrace in your memories, I believe at the time of her death in 1908, Letitia was living with one of her daughters there.
Evan and Sarah had at least six children, Evan, John, Mary, Jane, Elizabeth and Catherine.
Richard Roberts married Jane Williams and they were my great grandparents. Richard and Jane had seven children, William(Bill Canada), Elizabeth(Cissie/Bet), Ruth, Myfanwy(Mance), Ellen(Nell), Richard(Dick) and Wynne.
Flight Sergeant Wynne Roberts had been at Bangor University when he volunteered and joined The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, service number 918118. He was killed at the age of 21 on 10th August 1941. His body was never recovered but he is mentioned by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission on Panel 51 of The Runnymede Memorial. Also on the memorial water fountain and the war memorial in Fron.
William was my taid and I assume he acquired his nickname as he went out to Canada in 1927 looking for work. On board ship he met two Canadian sisters returning to Canada after visiting relatives in the North East of England. Three years later he married the elder sister Gwendoline Novareen Allan (Peggy) in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Three children were born in Canada before the family returned to Wales in March 1936 where a further two children were born. These children were Kathleen Jean(Kay), Sybil Gwendoline, Richard Wynne(Wynne), Dilys Barbara(Barbara) and Gwilym Isfryn. They lived firstly at Blaenycwm with Richard and Jane; then at Penygraig and finally at Woodlands Grove. Sadly Gwendoline died in 1954 at the age of 50. William went on to marry again twice and was well known as a welsh lay preacher.
My mother is Kathleen and she always thinks of you as her twin as she too was born on 25th July 1932 and like you despite always regarding herself as a Froner from "The City On The Hill" she was not born there but in Canada.
My own memories of The Fron come from the late sixties when my sister and I would spend a week of every summer holiday with my mother's two aunts, firstly at Blaenycwm and later at Roslyn near the Post Office. We would arrive for our holiday by Bryn Melyn bus from Chirk, alighting from the bus at Walnut Cottage, before its modernisation. We would then follow the narrow, steep path to Blaenycwm, passing Mrs. Armitage's house on the way. Mrs. Armitage was a good neighbour to my aunts and during the gap between them moving from Blaenycwm to Roslyn they had rooms in her home. We would spend hours with my aunt's binoculars looking across the valley and watching the farm animals below. We found the house fascinating as despite the fact it was two cottages made in to one house, it still had two staircases and they had not knocked through upstairs so in order to pass from one bedroom to another, one had to go down one staircase and back up the other. During the week, there were several visits to the local shops, stopping to talk to many residents on the way.
After the move to Roslyn, there was plenty for two young schoolgirls to do in the large garden amongst the blackcurrant and fuchsia bushes. Mrs Alice Griffiths was their neighbour and her grandsons would sometimes come over from Trevor and we would play ball games or hide and seek. Auntie Bet, who had been a nurse, believed in taking walks and we spent much time walking along the canal and the lanes around Stryd yr era. I recall on one of these walks along the lanes near Plas yn Pentre, we stopped to talk to Olwen and she showed us around her brother's home, Plas yn Pentre farm and there was much talk of priest holes and secret passages to Valle Crucis. I remember Uncle Bert from Manchester, Auntie Ruth's husband, during one visit teaching my sister and I to play dominoes but Auntie Bet was insistent that we did not play on a Sunday. Sunday was for chapel. Firstly Gorphwysfa , where my parents were married and after it closed, the English Methodist. I remember other visitors to Roslyn such as Kath, a friend of Auntie Bet's and also Katie and Harry from Stoke on Trent, I think they were cousins. Auntie Bet and Auntie Mance enjoyed trips to the Dutch bulb fields and our evening entertainment was quite often watching their slideshows.
Auntie Bet would look after the family graves in St David's churchyard and she would explain who the various relatives were and I think this is where the seeds of my very absorbing hobby were sown. My nain was buried in one grave, where my taid was later buried and in another grave was Sarah Williams(Auntie Bet's nain) and Richard and Jane Roberts(Auntie Bet's parents). Subsequently, Auntie Bet and Auntie Mance were cremated and they are mentioned on the grave, along with Great Uncle Wynne.
Two other memories from this time were firstly of visiting my taid who was a council roadman when he was working on the straightening of the Kilns Corner and secondly of being on a bus or in a shop and Mum talking to people and me asking the question, “Who was that?” and being given the same answer. “Oh, they are a first cousin to my dad.” My next question would always be. “But how are they a first cousin to your dad?” The answer would always be. “I don’t know.” I believe these first cousins must be related through the descendants of Letitia.
Living in Chirk, I attended Dinas Bran in Llangollen along with pupils from Fron. I remember particularly from my year Jane Edwards and Jacquie Puxty. Jane I have seen occasionally over the years but Jacquie I have only seen once.
I would love to hear from anyone who thinks they may be related; anyone who thinks I could supply them with family history details or anyone who thinks they can supply me with family history details.
My e-mail address is brynbeynon21@tiscali.co.uk
Regards
Sheila Beynon nee Jones