Article Submitted 6/18/02 by Doug Collar ('64)

The Class of 1942 60th reunion will be held on Saturday, October 5th at the Civic Center on Washington Street. Contact Margaret (Ward) Riddle 419-448-0237.

Bartie Jones (Betty Bartholomew), Class of '42, has published a new novel entitled "Call to Cambria" (ISBN #0-75968-607-6). It is available from
http://www.1stbooks.com (Enter Author: Bartie Jones) or (toll free) at 1-888-280-7715.

   Bartie's novel is based on her experiences as a music teacher in a Welsh community in western Ohio. The novel focuses on the experiences of the first female minister in this traditional farming community during the crucial year of 1971.

   Bartie has self-published eight poetry books and written inspirational articles for numerous publications. She has also received several awards and recognition for her poetry.

She received her bachelor’s degree in music with a minor in English from Heidelberg College. She taught music in the Bettsville and Spencerville, Ohio schools. More recently she was Office Manager of the Washington University Student YMCA/YWCA in St. Louis, where she now resides and currently serves as Poet and Sage for the American Youth Foundation’s Camp Miniwanca in Michigan each summer. This is her first novel.

   While in Tiffin, Bartie will have a book signing at the Tiffin-Seneca County Public Library on Monday, October 7 (7-9 pm).

About the book: "Call to Cambria"

   "I suppose you would call this a historical novel as well as a Christian one. It is partially based on true happenings, but written with the imagination of fiction. I used the place as setting and created the characters from a mixture of many of the people who lived there at the time. I lived twenty-six years in this small Welsh-American community and fell in love with the people and their music. Ever since, I wanted to write a story about it. So it came alive as I placed my own characters in a familiar setting."

   "Their traditional music is soul moving. I grew to love the hymns of their annual Gymanfa Ganu (Welsh Hymn Singing Festival). They really did raise money for a new organ and there were the usual arguments that any church would have. However, I wrote my own story to fit the characters I had developed and how they would act in the situation."

   "There was a blizzard that I lived through and was able to describe as I remembered it. Only one character is described visibly the same as one of my friends who is no longer alive, and that’s Tadcu, but he didn’t die like my character did, fortunately. I’m sure the Venedocia people will recognize Tadcu."

   "I wanted to tell a story of the Welsh immigrant, particularly of a time when their language was giving way to English and their identities as "pure-blooded Welsh" were waning; and I wanted to tell of the struggles that young women ministers have in establishing themselves in what has enerally been accepted as a male profession. Megan is a strong woman, but she has to work hard at being who she wants to be and in this story she is, all the time, becoming." -- Bartie Jones