Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hi. Is that ol Collins? Hi?
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Is this Lacy?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It is Lacey? If you are calling from Ireland? Am
I too earlier? Is it? Okay?
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is perfect? God has answered a prayer because I
was hoping you were going to call early.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh wonderful. Oh my goodness, I'm sitting here waiting to call.
So that's the ideal. Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
What a beautiful story this is. And I got to
tell you, I'm really super jealous of these handwritten letters
that you've got of your grandmother and your great aunt,
because I mean, my god, I mean, I don't have
any of that in my life.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh that's so beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful. So it's actually
my grandaunt and her cousin. Oh wow, jelf. But it
doesn't really matter because everyone gets confused. But they're from
the early nineteen hundred, so they're beautiful. Arrow, And thank
you for reading that aspect of the brief. Thank you
for that.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
One of the things. I mean, I love old time
writing because it comes with its own texture. They've got
their own rhythm in the writing and the scent of
it all. Was that what inspired you to write the book?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes, so so beautiful, so are we kicking in now?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, excellent. Okay, Well, I did want
to tell you how impressed I am that you study
voices and that you talk about putting passion into the sentences.
I think that is so wonderful. So that is so
beautiful because I equally agree, So thank you, Eric that
(01:24):
I am thrilled to talk to you about Yankee Hunt,
which was launched in March twenty fifth. It's a rich
Irish American American immigrant family story. So you're asking me
about these amazing letters. So I found them or I
believe they found me in nineteen ninety three, and some
of these letters had never ever been opened, what so
(01:48):
the recipient never received them? How cool is that?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
My?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
That to me is a moment that I called, dear
future reader.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Excellent. I love it so exactly how I felt. I
firmly believe or that those letters were waiting for me
because other family members had visited and I'm the youngest
of that generation. And the two black bags were handed
to me that morning sitting in the Brownstone in Boston,
and over the whole day, the eight ten hours, I
(02:21):
pieced their journey together, and that journey is in Yankee Land.
It's the rich story between two cousins who are like sisters.
One stayed in their village in Ireland and the other
one got to live her dream and go to Yankee Land.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, Yankee Land meaning America, United States.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
So let me give you a little quote from one
of the letters. So this was the inspiration for the
name of the book in the letters, And I'm reading
directly from one of the letters that was written from
Ireland in the early nineteen hundreds over to America. And
I quote directly, I am afraid a trick to Yankee
Land is out of the question for us unless we
(03:02):
get rich sooner than we expect. Why don't you, people
who have no encumbrance pay a visit to the old
land so beautiful? And you alluded to that at the
start of this conversation. So they called in all the
letters between Ireland and America, they called America Yankee Land.
(03:22):
So it was a ready made name for my book.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Like I said, dear future reader, my god, beautiful. One
of the things that you talk about in this book
is one of my favorite words, transformation. I love that word.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Beautiful. Okay, absolutely beautiful. So for me, with this story, Arrow.
It was about Bridget's transformation. So she was leading behind
an hifling Irish village. She had had access to the
glitz and glamour through magazines because they owned a store
in a little village in Ireland, and so she would
(04:01):
have had an insight to what the world outside of
a village in Ireland had to offer. And also there
was a very wealthy American heiress who had married into
a grand estate just a few miles outside her village,
so she wanted to transform herself. Bridget was going to America.
She was coming from an affluent background. She was not
(04:23):
your typical immigrant who was leaving poverty and starvation. She
was very affluent. They traveled first class on the SS Adriatic.
So it was such a rich story, so colorful, so
full of excitement, but unfortunately life doesn't always deliver according
to our best laid plans.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've always believed share your story or someone will write
it for you. This is definitely one of those moments.
We're going to be right back with Lacey Fewer. Hey,
thanks for coming back to my conversation with Lacey Fewer.
They're tough times in Ireland versus what we're going through today,
What can we take from your book that we can
use as a tool today to become a stronger generation.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
So I believe that this book, Yankee Land Arrow, is
rich in the history of the facts. So let's you know,
I do need to clarify that this story is based
on true events, So all of my research in this
book is factual, of particularly as to how women were
perceived in that period. I was delighted by one of
(05:27):
the many excellent reviews that I got, delighted that my
readers picked up that I paint the men in a
very favorable life. They were, you know, Bridgest's husband, Bridget's brother,
They were truly kind, loving people. They were just of
their generation. And I would say the thing we can
take into this day and age Arrow is we can
(05:48):
all be affected by herd mentality, where we tend to
adopt whatever society is doing at the time. But I'm
a firm believer in never walking past the behavior I
don't accept. So please, I would say to people, have
the courage. We are lucky in the current society we're
in that we can be supported with our courage. So
(06:08):
if you see something that you don't believe in, please
speak up. Because the people around you and humanity will
obviously be much better off for that.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Am I to understand? Did it took you thirty years
to get to this point of the book?
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yes, that is God, that is exact. So I found
the letters in nineteen ninety three. So let's go back
to nineteen ninety three. It was sort of really pre Google,
pre huge adoption of the Internet, and I was a
very very young girl. I was coming back from travels.
I had spent some time in America. Myself, os Iris
(06:44):
love to travel. We are all over the world. There's
forty million of us who claim our heritage in America,
and that's one of the reasons I went with an
American publisher. So over the last thirty years, I have
done huge research, particularly into the records for Bridget and
one of the characters, Kate. I had to get access
(07:05):
to a lot of their records to be able to
give this story the depth that needed. I also believe
that my life experiences. This book has been written with
lived experience, and the feedback I'm receiving has been really
strong around that, so I believe that it's actually coming
out at the right time.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Absolutely, where can people go to find out more about you, Lacy,
because I want them to really get into your journey
and this book wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Thank you so much. So you can find me at
ww dot Lacy that's Lacy and fewer few or dot
com that's my website. I am on Instagram Lacyfeur, I'm
on Facebook Lacey Fere and then Yankee Land is available
across all outlets, particularly throughout America, so you put that
(07:59):
into your search, it'll pop up. And I'm delighted to
say that the support so far has been phenomenal. It's
been in the bestseller list in Immigration Tamed Books, and
it's really really exciting time for me and I cannot
thank or the American and the Irish readers enough for
their support.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Arrow. I can't wait to talk to you again. Please
come back to this show anytime in the future.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I would love that. It has been my greatest pleasure
and I hope your listeners enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Will you'd be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Okay, thank you so much. Arrow, I'm thrilled with the opportunity.
Thank you so much.