Ten years after his death, Welk lives on in fans' hearts

STRASBURG, N.D. -- It has been decades since anyone has lived on the small farmstead that made this small North Dakota farming community famous.

But listen carefully. As visitors drive up from the gravel road, they can hear the "champagne music" flowing freely from the barn where Lawrence Welk used to play his accordion.

"His sisters would get so sick of him playing that thing that they would send him out to the barn," said Welk's niece, Edna Schwab.

Ten years after Welk's death at age 89, people still visit his family farm in Strasburg, tune into reruns of "The Lawrence Welk Show" on public television, and join fan clubs celebrating the "wunnerful, wunnerful" orchestra leader.

Schwab is one of several local people who gives tours of the Welk farmstead 2 miles outside of Strasburg, a town of about 550 people. A life-size cutout of the King of Champagne music greets visitors as they walk into the sod house in which he, his parents and seven siblings lived.

The homestead, which includes a summer kitchen, granary, buggy house, blacksmith shop, outhouse and barn, was restored and opened for tours in 1991. The Welks never had running water, Schwab said.

A German bible and prayer book lie on an end table in the living room. The organ is a close match to the one the Welks owned.

About 3,000 people this year visited the site, tucked away about 100 miles south of Bismarck and 2 miles off the "Lawrence Welk" highway.

Welk left his family farm on his 21st birthday after playing at community weddings and barn dances. He didn't hit the big time until more than 20 years later, with a 1951 television appearance in Los Angeles. ABC picked up his show in 1955.

It ran for 16 years, and was syndicated until 1982. Welk died on May 17, 1992.

Some public TV stations started running Welk's show again in 1987; about 267 stations air it nationwide every week, said Margaret Heron, syndication manager for the Welk Group.

"I think its appeal is that it takes us back to a gentler lifestyle that we don't live today," said Heron, Welk's longtime friend.