Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 30, 1990 TAG: 9006300053
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: STRASBURG, N.D. LENGTH: Medium
About 100 people gathered Tuesday to hear bands play German polkas, waltzes and marches, and Gov. George Sinner planted a tree during a groundbreaking ceremony at the farm where Welk lived until he was 21.
Sinner said Welk symbolizes the talent of the descendants of the Germans who came to North Dakota 100 years ago.
"They are people who work hard and play hard," Sinner said. "They are people who believe that artistic ability is at its best when it is for the common people."
The bandleader himself, now 87 and living in Los Angeles, did not attend but sent a letter of thanks.
"Little did I dream when I was growing up on the farm so many, many years ago that someday it would be restored and people would come and marvel at how life was lived in the early 1920s," Welk wrote.
"Looking back, I would say that life on the farm was very hard and I didn't always like it - especially when I had to help butcher the hogs. But they were really happy days, too, because there was always love."
The farm has been vacant since 1966. But folks in this town of 600 - about 75 miles south of Bismarck - decided to refurbish the farm to chronicle Welk's achievements and the history of his German-Russian ancestors.
Carpenters have finished rebuilding a granary and a buggy house, a summer kitchen and the outhouse on the farm where Welk's parents came from Russia in 1893. Renovation work is under way on the 25-by 28-foot sod house built by Welk's father at the turn of the century.
And a barn that was not part of the original farm is being turned into a museum of German-Russian immigration.
The cost of the project is estimated at $750,000, including $500,000 for a trust to maintain the museum after it opens. Welk Heritage Inc., which is coordinating the restoration, has raised $150,000, including $80,000 from Welk's foundation in California. It hopes to collect the rest from grants and donations.
Sharon Eiseman, a spokeswoman for Welk Heritage, said plenty of visitors are expected. Strasburg bills itself as the gateway to South Dakota's Black Hills.
"During the summer we have 1,000 to 1,100 cars a day going through here, down to South Dakota and back up to Canada," Eiseman said.
One recent visitor was the Rev. John Nieuwsma of Holland, Mich., who stopped at the farm with his sisters to reminisce about growing up in the area.
"Lawrence is older than we are but we used to go to town on Saturday night and peek through the windows of the Blue Room and see him playing with the Hotsy Totsy Boys," Nieuwsma recalled.
"Back there in the haymow, that's where he practiced his accordion until he left," Nieuwsma said.
"Lawrence never wanted to be a farmer but he made a deal with his father that he'd work on the farm until he was 21, in return for a $400 accordion."
Welk kept his part of the bargain - and went on to one of the country's most successful bandleaders. He formed his own band in 1927 and got his start in radio at WNAX in Yankton, S.D. The band was known as "The Honolulu Fruit Gum Orchestra" and "Lawrence Welk and his Hotsy Totsy Boys," and played at area ballrooms for several years in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
"He started out with polkas and waltzes," Eiseman said. "It's just the general heritage around here. Everybody plays polkas and waltzes."
In the late 1930s, the band traveled east to the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, where "Champagne Music" was born. Welk then made his headquarters in the Chicago area in the 1940s, and became a national television hit in the late 1950s, first as a summer replacement and then as a regularly weekly show.
His syndicated television show, now in reruns, is still a favorite among North Dakotans on Saturday nights. 3 1 WELK Welk
by CNB