I have a fascination with cemeteries. Old, out-of-the-way, overgrown ones are my favorite. But I also have a fascination with headstones of famous people. And I have a fascination with small towns.
You would think that some of the more flamboyant celebrities would have over-the-top headstones. That’s not always the case.
One of my favorite websites is Find A Grave. When I read a story about someone, famous or not, and I’m intrigued by this person’s life, I will go to Find A Grave to see where they’re buried and often times there is an obituary or short story about them.
Yesterday I was searching online for something and out of the blue the name Lawrence Welk came up. How that happened is beyond me. If you don’t know who that is, Google it.
I remember my grandparents watching The Lawrence Welk Show so I got curious about where he came from, why he had an accent, etc. Off I went to Find A Grave.
For me, this is where it got interesting. He was born in Strasburg, North Dakota. One of 9 children, on a farm, raised by parents who only spoke German.
The next thing I was curious about was Strasburg, North Dakota. I Googled it, read all about the history on Wikipedia, and found that it’s located just above the South Dakota border, smack-dab in the center of the state. The population is less than 600 people.
Well, I’ve gone this far so let’s take it a step further. Google Earth. Strasburg is located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The closest McDonald’s is 55 miles away in Bismarck.
Next step for me was to find out what folks in Strasburg do for fun. Nothing. There is one, maybe two restaurants, no hotels, no shopping, no movie theater…unless those things were added after the article I read was written.
I did get down to street level on Google Earth and I have to tell you that each street I looked at was immaculate, each home was well taken care of, every lawn was mowed, and the entire community reminded me of Mayberry. It definitely looked like a place that I could live in.
Well…how’s the real estate market in Strasburg? After all, with nothing to do there and no McDonald’s, you have to wonder who wants to live there besides me. So I Googled real estate in Strasburg and believe it or not, there was one house for sale and it was $36,000. Now I’m wondering to myself what the interior of this home must look like.
It was clean and charming. It was across the street from a church which really interested me. I pictured a lot of the neighbors walking to church on Sunday morning, stopping for brief periods to chat with a friend. After all, everybody must know everybody, right?
Next…the weather. I have seen pictures of the Dakota’s in the winter and it isn’t pretty. Back to Google again. Much to my surprise, the winter months aren’t bad at all. The average precipitation is not what I thought it would be, although the winter low temps were nothing to write home about.
So where does this search end? It ends with me trying to figure out how Lawrence Welk got from this one-horse town to Hollywood. From what I was able to put together, he traveled around the midwest playing his music well into his twenties, somewhere along the line he got married to a gal from St Anthony ND (which is even smaller than Strasburg), headed out to Hollywood, got his break, and was married for 61 years.
Back in Strasburg is the Welk Homestead State Historic Site that is open for tours upon request / reservation.
As odd as my search seems to some of you, I was thrilled at the end of the day that I was able to put some of this puzzle together all because of Lawrence Welk’s name popping up on a different search I was doing.
And just in case you’re wondering, it’s 719 miles from my house to Strasburg ND and I do hope I get to take a road trip one day to see this quaint little town.
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