This photo shows the Welk Homestead State Historic Site in North Dakota, birthplace of famed bandleader Lawrence Welk. The image features a modest white farmhouse with a shingled roof, screened porch, and exterior staircase leading to the upper level. A small outbuilding sits nearby, with wide open lawn and trees surrounding the property. The simple, well-kept homestead reflects the German-Russian immigrant heritage of the region and preserves the humble beginnings of one of America’s most beloved entertainers.

Herzlich Wilkommen at Welk Homestead, a German-Russian farm and the birthplace of bandleader and TV host Lawrence Welk.

Take a look at the largest white structure—the farmhouse. It may look typical of any American farm from the late 1800s, but the Welks built it with many traditional German-Russian features. For one, the walls are made of 18 inches of sun-dried clay bricks called Batsa. The only staircase, which leads to the boys’ bedroom, is on the outside. Inside, there’s no central hall or hallway. Instead, the rooms open from one to the next in a row, starting with the kitchen and ending with the bedrooms. The German-Russian features continue across from the house with the summer kitchen, which faces the house. It’s a one-room structure dedicated to all “messy” activities, such as butchering, laundry, and bathing, as well as cooking in summer when the added heat would be unwelcome in the house.

So while the Homestead may look typically American in some ways, it’s also very German-Russian in others—a good metaphor for the Welks themselves.

Ludwig and Christina Welk, Lawrence’s parents who first set up this homestead, were originally from the Odessa area of South Russia, now in the Ukraine. They immigrated to the US in 1893 and filed a claim the following year. They raised their eight surviving children here, including Lawrence.

By moving to this area, Ludwig and Christina were actually rejoining several of their friends and family from the same cluster of villages in South Russia. Strasburg was predominantly a German-Russian community, meaning most families had moved in from the Russian Empire, but their ancestors came from German-speaking parts of Europe. This was a tight-knit, cohesive community where most people spoke the same German dialect and shared the Catholic faith.

Despite this, the Welks had to make frequent decisions about what older traditions to continue and what new American ideas to try. They didn’t always agree. For example, the Welks had been musicians for generations. They even had an accordion that Lawrence said belonged to an ancestor in Germany. But when Lawrence decided he didn’t want to grow up to be a farmer and would rather be a musician exclusively, his father was disappointed and concerned. Of course, we now know it worked out, with Lawrence going on to become one of the wealthiest and most popular entertainers in television history.