William Rees and his wife Mary had ten children in Meline Parish in the early 19th century. The youngest, Caleb, left Pembrokeshire to find work in the iron and coal areas of Glamorganshire in Southeast Wales. There he met Rachel James, who had come from Trelech a'r Bettws Parish in Carmarthenshire, between Pembrokeshire and Glamorganshire. Immediately after they married, Caleb and Rachel left for America.

In Ohio, Caleb and Rachel Rees had four daughters. They then moved again, this time to help start a new Welsh colony in eastern Nebraska. There Caleb was murdered by drunken soldiers, leaving Rachel to raise their daughters.

One of the four daughters of Caleb and Rachel, Catherine, married an immigrant from Llanedy Parish in Carmarthenshire, Rees Morgan. Rees and Catherine Morgan spent most of the rest of their lives in Brown County, Kansas. Catherine Rees Morgan was the recipient of most of these letters.

Catherine and Rees Morgan had five children: Stanley (who died in infancy), Lewis Caleb (L.C. or Caleb), Isaac Newell (I.N. or Doc), Chester Rees, and Gordon Ray Morgan.

Catherine's father, Caleb Rees, had several older brothers. One of them, Stephen, had a son named Caleb--a second Caleb Rees--who wrote some of the letters included here. Other letters were written by still another Caleb Rees, the son of the second Caleb's brother Jacob.

The originals of these letters were collected by Catherine's son Lewis Morgan and preserved by Dr. Roland Reese Morgan, a son of Lewis' brother Dr. I. N. Morgan. Dr. R. R. Morgan's brother, Christopher N. Morgan, is my father.

I transcribed the letters, keeping the spelling and punctuation as they appeared in the original letters.