Notes:

Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota. He was sixth of the eight children of Ludwig and Christiana (Schwahn) Welk, ethnic Germans who emigrated to America in 1892 from Selz, Kutschurgan District, in the German-speaking area north of Odessa (now Odessa, Ukraine, but then in southwestern Russia).

The family lived on a homestead that today is a tourist attraction. They spent the cold North Dakota winter of their first year under an upturned wagon covered in sod. Welk decided on a career in music and persuaded his father to buy a mail-order accordion for $400 (equivalent to $4,641 as of 2013)[2][3] He promised his father that he would work on the farm until he was 21, in repayment for the accordion. Any money he made elsewhere during that time, doing farmwork or performing, would go to his family.

A common misconception is that Welk did not learn English until he was 21. In fact, he began learning English as soon as he started school. The part of North Dakota where he lived had been settled largely by Germans from Russia; even his teachers spoke English as a second language. Welk thus acquired his trademark accent, typical of these Plattdeutsch or Low German-speaking immigrants who usually spoke the language at home long after they began to learn English at school. He took elocution lessons in the 1950s and could speak almost accent-free, but he realized his public expected to hear him say: "A-one, an-a-two" and "Wunnerful, Wunnerful!" When he was asked about his ancestry, he would always reply "Alsace-Lorraine, Germany," from where his forebears had emigrated to Russia (and which, at the time of Welk's birth in 1903, had become part of the German Empire).
Early career

On his 21st birthday, having fulfilled his promise to his father, Welk left the family farm to pursue a career in music, which he loved. During the 1920s, he performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands before starting his own orchestra. He led big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. These included the Hotsy Totsy Boys and later the Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra.[4] His band was also the station band for popular radio station WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota. In 1927, he graduated from the MacPhail School of Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[5]
Photo of Welk in Chicago, 1944.

Although many associate Welk's music with a style quite separate from jazz, he did record one notable song in a ragtime style in November 1928 for Indiana-based Gennett Records. "Spiked Beer" featured Welk and his Novelty Orchestra.

During the 1930s, Welk led a traveling big band that specialized in dance tunes and "sweet" music. Initially, the band traveled around the country by car. They were too poor to rent rooms, so they usually slept and changed clothes in their cars. The term "Champagne Music" was derived from an engagement at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, when a dancer referred to his band's sound as "light and bubbly as champagne." The hotel also lays claim to the original "bubble machine," a prop left over from a 1920s movie premiere. Welk described his band's sound, saying "We still play music with the champagne style, which means light and rhythmic. We place the stress on melody; the chords are played pretty much the way the composer wrote them. We play with a steady beat so that dancers can follow it."[6]

Welk's big band performed across the country but particularly in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. In the early 1940s, the band began a 10-year stint at the Trianon Ballroom in Chicago, regularly drawing crowds of nearly 7,000. His orchestra also performed frequently at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City during the late 1940s. In 1944 and 1945, Welk led his orchestra in many motion picture "Soundies," considered to be the early pioneers of music videos.[citation needed] Welk collaborated with Western artist Red Foley to record a version of Spade Cooley's "Shame on You" in 1945. The record (Decca 18698) was #4 to Cooley's #5 on Billboard's September 15 "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" listing.[7] From 1949 through 1951, the band had its own national radio program on ABC, sponsored by "The Champagne of Bottle Beer" Miller High Life.

Welk was married for 61 years, until his death, to Fern Renner (b. August 26, 1903, d. February 13, 2002[11]), with whom he had three children. One of his sons, Lawrence Welk Jr., married fellow Lawrence Welk Show performer Tanya Falan; they later divorced. Welk had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of them, grandson Lawrence Welk III, who usually goes by "Larry Welk," is a reporter and helicopter traffic pilot for KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. One of the great-grandchildren, Nate Fredricks, reportedly enjoys the same love for music as his great-grandfather did and plays guitar in a band.

Known as an excellent businessman, Welk had investments in real estate and music publishing. Welk was the general partner in a commercial real estate development located at 100 Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. The 21-story tall white tower is the tallest building in Santa Monica and is located on the bluffs overlooking Santa Monica Bay. It was informally named "The Lawrence Welk Champagne Tower."

Lawrence married Fern Veronica Renner on 18 Apr 1931 in Iowa, USA. Fern (daughter of Mathias Renner and Elisabetha Anton) was born on 26 Aug 1903 in Saint Anthony, Morton County, North Dakota, USA; died on 13 Feb 2002 in California, USA; was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, Los Angeles County, California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Shirley Jean Welk
2. Donna Lee Welk
3. Lawrence Welk

Notes:

The story of the Welk family can be traced to Moritz Welk who married Magdalena Arth in 1802 in the village of Winzenbach, located in Lower Alsace, France. In 1808 Moritz and Magdalena Welk, along with a hundred other German-Catholic families from Alsace, immigrated to southern Russia. They founded the village of Selz in the Kutschurgan district near Odessa and the Black Sea.

Moritz and Magdalena Welk's eldest son, Kasper, married Magdalena Gutenberg in the 1820's. Kasper and Magdalena Welk had a son named Johannes, born in the 1830's and raised in the colony of Selz. Johannes Welk, who became a blacksmith, married Marianna Schweitzer from the colony of Strassburg, Kutschurgan District, Black Sea Region. They are the grandparents of the famous bandleader, Lawrence Welk.

Significant in the story of the homestead is the third child of Johannes and Marianna Welk. Ludwig Welk was born in Selz, Russia, on August 24, 1864. He married Christina Schwahn, who was born in the colony of Strassburg on March 1, 1870. Besides being a farmer, Ludwig Welk became a blacksmith, like his father.

Ludwig and Christina immigrated to America, as did many other Kutschurgan families, arriving in New York in 1893. They traveled by rail to Eureka, South Dakota, where they acquired a wagon and a team of oxen for their trek northward to Emmons County, North Dakota. Ludwig and Christina lost their first child, Anton, before leaving Russia. When they emigrated in 1893 Christina was carrying their second child, John, born on July 3, 1893. There were eight children in all in the Welk family. Born in the sodhouse still standing on the homestead were Barbara (1895), Anna Mary (1896), Louie (1898). Agatha (1900), Lawrence (1903), Michael (1905), and Eva (1909). Eva, a resident of Aberdeen, South Dakota, is the only child still living. Lawrence Welk died on May 17, 1992 in Santa Monica, California.

When Ludwig and Christina Welk retired to Strasburg, the farm was taken over by their youngest son, Michael and his wife Catherine (Hager) Welk. Today the land is farmed jointly by brothers Larry and Jimmy Schwab who are husbands of Evelyn and Edna, daughters of Michael and Catherine Welk. Evelyn and Edna have granted a 99-year lease of land to Welk Heritage for the restoration of the farmstead begun in 1990. They serve on the Board of Directors of Pioneer Heritage, Inc. and as tour guides at the homestead.

The Welk Homestead has been placed on the National Register of Historic Sites. The ground-breaking for the homestead restoration took place on June 25, 1990. Along with a reunion of the Welk family, the dedication was held June 7, 1992 and was attended by 3,500 people. Guests at the dedication included Lawrence Welk II, accordionist Myron Floren, and champagne music lady Norma Zimmer.

The homestead has been carefully restored to its 1920's condition. The house was made of mud and clay brick, a method of construction used by Ludwig Welk's ancestors 85 years earlier on the steppes of South Russia. Besides the house, other buildings include a summer kitchen, a granary, buggy house, blacksmith shop, outhouse, and barn. The restoration of the barn has not been completed. It will eventually house an interpretive center telling the story of the Welk family and the heritage of the Germans from Russia.

In Lawrence Welk's autobiography, Wunnerful! Wunnerful!, appears the following: "On March 11, 1924, I woke up early in the morning. I was twenty-one years old ... My father and I had a bargain, and we had each kept to the letter the spirit of agreement. He had kept his word and I was free to go. Now it was up to me to prove that my dreams were more than dreams ... I jumped into the buggy and I began the three-mile trip to Strasburg ... Now the fields straight ahead of me, beckoning me toward my future ... Occasionally I would turn around and look back toward the farmhouse. All the rest of the family had returned to their chores, but my mother stood out where she could see me as I drove down the road; and whenever I turned around she would withdraw her hands from beneath her white apron and wave both arms in the air. I waved back, until finally I came to a turn in the road ... and I could see her no more. "

It is important in the context of the Welk homestead to note other sites relating to the Germans from Russia, all within easy driving distance of each other. The churches in Strasburg and Hague are beautiful examples of structures consecrated to the Christian Faith of German-Russian homesteaders. Both churches are on the National Register of Historic Sites. The John and Magdalena(Baumgartner) Schwab farmhouse, located west of Strasburg, has been restored by Schwab family members. Another farmhouse, that of Johannes Goldade, is not far from the Schwab farmhouse. Beautiful wrought iron crosses characteristic of German-Russian Black Sea Catholic cemeteries can be found in south central North Dakota near Hague, Napoleon, Strasburg, Linton, and Zeeland. Also of interest are the historical museums located in Eureka, South Dakota, and in the towns of Linton, Napoleon, and Ashley, North Dakota.

Pioneer Heritage, Inc. offers, for the enjoyment and education of future generations, the story of the Welk family and their homesteading experience in North Dakota, along with general documentation on the heritage of the Germans from Russia and biographical material on the best known member of the Welk family, Lawrence Welk.

The restoration of this homestead is of interest and value to Americans of every ethnic extraction whose forefathers pioneered and settled the Great Plains of our country. A glimpse into the past cannot fail to engender an understanding and appreciation of those courageous, hard-working people who laid the groundwork for our present-day quality of life. Pioneer Heritage, Inc. invites you to step back in time with a visit to the birthplace of Lawrence Welk. The Welk homestead, located three miles northwest of Strasburg.

Ludwig married Christiana Schwan about 1891 in Selz, Odessa, Ukrayina. Christiana (daughter of Johannes Schwan and Barbara Erck) was born on 1 Mar 1870 in Strasburg, Odessa, Ukrayina; died on 27 Aug 1940 in Strasburg, Emmons County, North Dakota, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johannes married Marianna Schweitzer. Marianna was born in 1830 in Selz, Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johannes married Barbara Erck. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johannes married Magdalena Gutenberg. Magdalena (daughter of Moritz Gutenberg and Magdalena Arth) was born in 1806; died in in Selz, Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Michael married Agatha Brendel on 16 Jun 1840 in Strasburg, Odessa, Ukrayina. Agatha was born in 1822 in Selz, Odessa, Ukrayina; died in 0Jun 1853 in Strasburg, Odessa, Ukrayina. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]