A small main house, freshly painted and neat-as-a-pin, stands among a few cottonwood trees flanked by a summer kitchen, a barn, a granary, a windmill, a blacksmith shop, and the Lawrence Welk celebrity outhouse. The farmstead is very soothing, much like Lawrence Welk's music. All you have to do is turn off Highway 83 and follow your ears. A boom box sits in a window of the farmstead barn, pumping out happy accordion music. Lawrence's birthplace, officially known as the Ludwig and Christina Welk Farmstead, is nestled among wheat fields north of town, but fairly easy to find. Official portrait of the first inductee in the North Dakota Hall of Fame in Bismarck. His parents weren't around to see it they had been dead for 15 years. He left home for good on his 21st birthday and never looked back, playing weddings and radio barn dances until, in 1955, he finally debuted on national TV. The sixth of nine children, he essentially sold himself into slavery to his Dad to pay back $400 he borrowed to buy his first accordion. He hated farming, hated his parents, and for all we know he hated North Dakota. He was born on the outskirts of Strasburg in a sod house and - though North Dakotans may not like to hear it - hated the place. Lawrence Welk is one of North Dakota's favorite sons, a local boy who made it big.
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