Walter Welch

WALTER WELCH. While still supervising his extensive interests as a grain and stock farmer, Walter Welch gave to Macksville its largest and most complete garage service, and has made that one of his most important business enterprises.

Mr. Welch was born near Macksville, Kansas, March 5, 1879, six or seven years before the town was established. He thus has an intimate claim to rank among the pioneers of Stafford County. He is of Welsh and English ancestry, his forefathers having come to Virginia in colonial times. His father, D. H. Welch, was born in Virginia in 1848, grew up in his native state and in Illinois and came to Kansas in 1877. He was an early settler of Stafford County, homesteading a quarter section near Macksville, proved up on it, but later for ten years farmed in Douglas County. He has since had farming interests in Stafford County, and is now living at Macksville retired. He is a prohibitionist in politics. D. H. Welch married Mollie Webb, born in Virginia in 1840. Their children are: Alpha, wife of Guy Carter, a farmer near Dillwyn, Kansas; Reuben, who is sheriff of Stafford Cqunty[sic] and lives at St. John; Walter; Jessie, wife of Fred Pitts, a farmer near St. John; Luke, a farmer at Lakin, Kansas; Howard, a resident of Denver, Colorado; Inah, a farmer near Lewis, Kansas; and Grace, still at home with her parents.

Walter Welch was educated in the rural schools of Stafford County, and lived on his father's farm to the age of twenty. For seven years he traveled back and forth over a large area in Western Kansas, buying and selling stock. He has accumulated farm property to the extent of 1,160 acres in Stafford County, and still does his large business in the raising of grain and livestock. It was his ambition to give Macksville a well equipped and modern garage, and he put up a building on Main Street 140 by 60 feet, with all the facilities for storing and maintaining automobiles, and he is local agent for the Ford car. He built his modern home at Macksville in 1909. He is a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1906, at Macksville, he married Miss Belle English, daughter of William T. and Sarah English, retired farmers at Macksville. Mrs. Welch is a sister of A. G. English, the Macksville banker. To their marriage have been born two surviving children: Doris, born February 17, 1911, and Gerald, born September 5, 1916.

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