Grave
10 of Plot 09N-12-01 at the Sutton Cemetery has a stone inscribed, “GWLADYS
PRITCHARD JONES” with the dates “1883-1928”.
Should
you have noticed that stone, I’m guessing that among your first thoughts was
something along the lines of, “How did a monument carver make such a typo with
his chisel?”
 |
| Misspelled? Or was this woman's name actually G(w)ladys? |
The
volunteer who created the findagrave.com memorial for this person likely took a
few minutes before stepping up to correct the mistake. The memorial lists the
lady as “Gladys Pritchard Jones”.
I
vaguely remember noticing the name four years ago while I was photographing Sutton
Cemetery gravestones as a volunteer for findagrave.com at a time when fewer
than 25% of the cemetery had been photographed for that robust website. But I
was trucking right along with the project and did not investigate that grave
inscription.
We
uncover many mysteries, big and small, and some get passed over or forgotten
while we are working with stories about the Sutton community. But sometimes a
situation falls into our laps driving us back to a mystery.
 |
This 20" X 30" framed needlepoint triggered our
interest in the David Pritchard family, early settlers
near Sutton. |
Such a situation was in a recent email from the senior curator at the Nebraska State
Historical Society who offered to transfer a framed needlepoint to the Sutton
Museum. The item came from the estate of Miss Maude Pritchard of Sutton in
1956, given in memory of David and Mary Ann Pritchard of Sutton.
I
was familiar with the Pritchard family; they were once near-neighbors. We
accepted the curator’s offer, retrieved the item from the state museum and it
is now part of our Sutton collection.
The
item deserved proper documentation so we immediately delved into the story.
My
recollection from about 1950 was that three people lived on the Prichard farm,
one mile west on the DLD and a quarter-mile north, west side, and that two of
them were blind. I knew I could check with the Answer Ladies who sit at the
back table on our Pancake Saturdays. Sallie Barbee straightened me out – there
were only two people there and both were blind. She remembers her family stopping
to check on the Pritchard’s.
Sallie
believes her family did errands for the Prichard’s. I think we, and others probably
did too.
Brother
and sister Bertram and Maude Pritchard were the two blind residents. Bertram
died in 1950, Maude in 1955, fitting the 1956 date for the gift of the
needlepoint to the museum in Lincoln.
David
and Mary Ann (Davies) Pritchard immigrated from Wales in 1888 with five
children: John David, age 17; Maude was 13; Bertram, 8; William Davies
Pritchard was about 8 and may have been Bertram’s twin and the baby of the
family was Gwladys, age 5.
The
family left census records, marriage records and other traces where they
sometimes identified their origin as Wales and other times as England. They
likely saw Wales as part of England, or at least a lesser part of the United
Kingdom.
Although
the younger daughter was sometimes called Gladys, formal documents, her 1908
Lancaster County marriage license and her tombstone included the “w” in
Gwladys. What kind of a name is that? What kind of a word?
Have
you ever looked at a map of Wales?
The
Welsh do some particularly peculiar things when assembling letters into words.
The
Pritchard family came from Breconshire in Wales. The -shire suffix refers to an
area that corresponds to our counties. But it’s squishy. The Brits have
occasionally merged counties, changed boundaries and changed names of counties
as recently as 1965 and 1974. And they have different kinds of counties. It’s
complicated.
But
back to Welsh names.
 |
| Penkelly Castle near the boyhood home of David Pritchard. |
David
was born in Penkelly also called Pencelli. Mary Ann was born in Beaufort, which
is near where Sir Thomas John Woodward grew up before he changed his name to
Tom Jones, perhaps the only Welshman many know of.
The
Pritchard offspring were born in the tiny village of Bedwellty.
 |
The village of Bedwellty in Monmouthshire, Wales. Ever been to a pub in the UK?
You'd love it. There is nothing like it in the U.S. They are not bars, or snack shops,
or restaurants, or coffee shops or donut shops but they do all of those things better
and all in one place, early morning to late at night. |
These
are not unusual names, but in the surrounding area you find Ebbw Vale, Cwnbran,
Ynysybwl, Mynydd Eglwysilan, Troedrhiwfuwch and the shire’s largest town,
Ystradgynlais. It is our good fortune that the Welsh were not predominate in
settling the New World.
More
to our point, there are towns called Capel Gwynfe, Gelin gwm Uchaf, Gwernesney
and Gwyddgrug and a mountain called Gwaun Rhudd. Now the Pritchard girl’s name
of Gwladys makes more sense.
 |
The Welsh have more fun than most when collecting letters to create their words. Perhaps the Welsh
language is nothing more than a huge joke they play on the rest of the world. |
But
where did the name come from?
Saint
Gwladys ferch Brychan was the queen of the saint-king Gwynllyw Milwr. Saint
Gwladys died in the year 500, or maybe 523. Her feast day is the 29th
of March.
So,
the name Gwladys Pritchard Jones in the Sutton Cemetery is no misprint.
John,
Maude and Bertram never married and lived out their lives on the N ½ of the SE
¼ of Section 33-8-5. Leonard Johnson
farmed and purchased the 80. It was part of the 400+ acres that were sold at
auction by the Douglas family a few years ago.
 |
The Pritchard farm, show here belonging to Mary, was a mile west of the park corner
and the second 80 to the north.. The C. Johnson farm to the north was that of Charley
Johnson, my great, grandfather. That quarter passed to his son Albert and in turn to
his son Leonard. F. Johnson was Charley's son Fred; that farm later to Clarence Johnson
and is still in the Johnson family, farmed by the Jasnochs. |
William
Davies Pritchard left Sutton and was married to Katherine Frantz in Denver in
May 1918. Later that year he filed his WWI draft registration and noted that he
had a physically disqualifying condition, stating “has lost one eye”. As
Bertram and Maude were later blind, the family may have had some genetically
connected eye disorder. William died in 1964. He is the only family member not
buried in Sutton Cemetery.
Daughter
Gwladys married Harry Jones in Lincoln on the last day of 1908. She died in
1928. Neither William or Gwladys had children.
We’ve
told about the demographics of Sutton often during the lifetime of
the historical society, telling of Germans, Germans from Russia, Swedes and
Danes, the Irish and even a few Scots. Many of the U. S. residents who settled
in this area were from “back East” – Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York,
etc. but with deeper roots from England. I’m not sure we’ve mentioned the Welsh
before.
When
we speak of the United Kingdom, the U.K., we usually think of England, Ireland
(at least Northern Ireland), Scotland and ... finally Wales. The history of
Wales was closely blended into the history of England early to the point that
they tend to lack a distinctive story.
Well,
we hope that the story of the Pritchard family adds a tiny sliver of proud
Welsh history to the Sutton story.
 |
We do not know of a second Welsh family in Sutton's story, but the Pritchard family
does connect the name of a Sutton Welsh girl with a Queen, and a Saint. |
Another
thing the Pritchard story does is illustrate how a single artifact or a single
piece of information often offers a clue to a little piece of Sutton history. That
clue may have been laying around for a long time. Old newspapers, an item on a
census from 100 years ago, scrapbooks, letters and other attic treasures, or
even an unusual spelling on a tombstone can lead to new knowledge and
understanding of our vague or forgotten collective memory.
Our
museum has become the depository for literally hundreds of Sutton artifacts and
clues that could unravel vague and forgotten memories. Les Bauer’s collection
of WWII photos, journal entries and letters that we wrote about last month is
an example. Paintings by the Ebert sisters and their art students likely are
clues to people and events. Military uniforms, old photos, family histories,
the Sutton depot cart, our incubator and other artifacts have interesting and
important stories to tell, if someone just takes a bit of time and effort to
delve in. It takes little more than a healthy dose of curiosity.
We’ve
made this pitch several times. The success of the Sutton Museum will very soon
hang on our success in attracting a new people to step forward and join us, the
sooner the better. We’re calling on your curiosity this time.
There
are many things about the Sutton story that are not known today, in mid-2017,
but they are knowable. It just takes someone with a bit of curiosity and
resourcefulness. It need not take much time or heavy lifting. Most of the
research for the story of the Pritchard family was done online and in a few
hours (not counting some real interesting distractions that popped up in the
process.) The always-handy Sutton High Alumni Directory told us that Maude was
the only Pritchard grad, Class of 1893.
The
online resources were findagrave.com (free), Google searches (free) Google
Earth (free), ancestry.com (subscription needed, but there are similar and
adequate free sites), census records (available on ancestry.com plus other
sites, some free – and that’s about it.
Essentially
the only information we found that relied on collective memories was that
Bertram and Maude were blind and that the family had lived on that 80.
Otherwise, the information was sitting there waiting to be found.
The
Pritchard family of seven immigrated in 1888 leaving family and friends in
Wales. We don’t know how long or often they corresponded with those people. The
family lived out their lives, only two of them ever leaving Sutton, had no
offspring to remember them. They died and were slowly forgotten.
The
Pritchard name survives in a major family plot in the Cemetery, on plat maps
and land records, in one line in the school directory and possibly a few
mentions in old newspapers. Probably the only physical item from the Pritchard
family is the framed needlework now in the Sutton Museum. And there is this
article, the product of a few hours research.
How
difficult is it to conduct this kind of research? It can be difficult, the
first time. It can be tricky the second and third time, but the time and effort
from beginner to journeyman doesn’t take long.
Want
to have some fun and satisfy your curiosity? Just say “Hi!”
This article first appeared in the September 2017 issue of Sutton Life Magazine.
