The St. David's Society of Minnesota was formed to celebrate the heritage and culture of the Welsh immigrants to Minnesota. To these ends, St. David's Society members celebrate and cultivate all things Welsh - in literature, history, music, dance, art or ideas, traditional and contemporary.
Find the program from our recent Holiday Tea, including all the readings, here.
Well-Read Dragons Book Group
Saturday, February 7, 2026, 11:45 am - 1:00 pm on Zoom
Earthly Creatures, by Stevie Davies. Honno Welsh Women's Press, 2024.
Stevie Davies, as two recommenders noted, is one of the Well-Read Dragons "must read" authors, reminding us of previous reads, including Into Suez, Awakening, Equivocator, and Impassioned Clay. With Earthly Creatures, Davies initally locates characters in 1941 at the home of 19 year-old Magdelena Arber, who has been raised in a dissident home in Lubeck, a town near Hamburg. As the novel opens, Magdelena is being indoctrinated with Nazi beliefs in school and community. She is assigned war service as a schoolteacher in rural Eastern Prussia, whose world of forests and lakes delight her. But, as monstrous events challenge the beliefs of her upbringing, she becomes disenchanted and must learn to hide her true values, execpt with two trusted women friends. With Earthly Creatues, Davies creates a book that explores its women characters' resistance to Nazi racism, eugenic theory, amd misogyny, and the deep personal cost of resisting state-induce terror.
The other books for 2025-26, also chosen by members:
Apr. 4: How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill. Doubleday, 1995
June 6: The Ladies, by Doris Grumbach. Harper Collins,1984
Aug. 1: Welsh [Plural]: Essays on the Future of Wales, edited by Darren Chetty, Grug Muse, Hanan Issa, and Iestyn Tyne. Repeater Press, 2022
Sgwrs Cymraeg, Welsh Conversation
Any learners or would-be learners welcome to any or all of these classes. ALL held via Zoom, on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays from 10:30am - 12:30pm. Contact conversation facilitator: Laurel Bradshaw, llawryf@yahoo.com for Zoom link and more information.
Interviews of Society Members
Our First Member Interview: Ellis Jones! On November 1, 2021, one of our board members, Hywel Roberts, interviewed our long-time member and past president, Ellis Jones. Click hereto read the transcript of the interview. We will eventually create a video of excerpts from this and future interviews.
Laurel Bradshaw: in March of 2025, Mary Morris Mergenthal interviewed Laurel about how she learned Welsh and became a Welsh dance instructor. Read her responses here.
Did you know the on-line game Wordle was invented by a Welshman? Read about his story here.
Today's Harlech: Our member Ryan Evans has produced a recording of Welsh-Minnesotans singing the folk song Tros Y Garreg (Over the Stone) set to his original electronic music accompaniment. He has also created a website with this music and stories and poems written by and read by our members about their Welsh heritage. (Click on the title above to get to the website.)
History of Wales links: Scott Lloyd, one of our Welsh speakers over Zoom,has generously shared many links to learn abour Welsh history and ancient sites.
Contact us at mailto:stdavidsofmn@gmail.com or visit and "like" our Facebook page to learn more about the Welsh and Wales at local, national, and international levels: Go to facebook
