Welk left school during fourth grade to work full-time on the family farm. They spent the cold North Dakota winter of their first year inside an upturned wagon covered in sod. The family lived on a homestead that is now a tourist attraction. Welk's paternal great-great grandparents, Moritz and Magdalena Welk, emigrated in 1808 from Germanophone Alsace-Lorraine to Ukraine. Welk was a first cousin, once removed, of former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer (Welk's mother and Schweitzer's paternal grandmother were siblings). He was sixth of the eight children of Ludwig and Christiana (née Schwahn) Welk, Roman Catholic ethnic Germans who emigrated in 1892 from Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Welk was born in the German-speaking community of Strasburg, North Dakota.
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