Local toasts family heritage

MOSES LAKE — And a one, and a two, and a few generations after The Lawrence Welk's show aired on television, a local woman toasts her heritage to the man and his "champagne music." Vicki Heimark's mother, Myra Collette, was interviewed for this piece from the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota. Welks is Heimark's great uncle.

Collette reminisces family gatherings filled with rich German food and rowdy music. Although Welk played jazz, polkas and Dixieland tunes on-air, he seldom if ever played with his family, which he considered his "vacation time," Collette said.

Private parties, to preserve the Welk’s heritage and television successes, have refurbished Welk’s home in North Dakota. There are additional plans underway to convert the homestead into a museum of the German Russian migration in the 19th century, when the Welks family moved to the area.

Read the full article at www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/268011/publisher_ID/40/.

— Staff report