I'm a little late in posting this, but many people will be interested. Mike is a tall man, living in Chico, CA, where he has worked for the Forest Service, and Tim is more his dad's size. He's a pilot for hospital flights out of Billings. Jamie works for the post office down in Texas. I have a feeling that any one of the three of them is quite capable of writing a book if they wanted to. Handsome, intelligent, graceful people.
Prairie Mary
Eulogy for James P. Welch
My name is Mike Welch. I am the oldest son of James Welch, and I will deliver these words on behalf of myself, my brother Tim, my sister Jamie, and my brother James P. Welch Jr., who has left us, but who I know is here today in spirit.
It was on a warm September day 54 years ago, that some of us who are here today, gathered, along with many others at this place for the funeral of our Grandmother Ellen Welch. Now we return again to lay to rest her youngest child, James P. Welch. He was the last survivor of her six children.
Today, we are honoring our father’s request that this ground be his final repose. This is where he wanted to be, here between his mother Ellen, and his grandmother Mary Jane Phemister. And I believe too, that he wanted to rest forever in this peaceful spot, under the Big Sky, with the Rockies rising to the west, and the Great Plains stretching away to the eastern horizon.
Our father, Pop as we always knew him, lived a long and sometimes complicated life, but he lived it fully, through the good times, and the not so good. He was a man of high ideals, which he tried to pass on to his children. He taught us things about honor, honesty and keeping your word. He valued these things, and he tried to exemplify them by his own conduct. He taught us to treat others with respect, and to be fair with people. He had a strong work ethic and this he tried to instill in us also. Through the years Pop demonstrated the worth of hard work, and he was a good provider for his family. Whatever he did, wherever the job or enterprise, he could always be counted on to be there every day, and to put in a good days work.
He was an ambitious man. He always had big plans. Things didn’t always work out just the way he planned, but he never gave up reaching for the golden ring, and trying to improve his life and his family’s
But still, he was a restless man too, and it seemed that sometimes when success did come his way, he found a reason to move on to something else. He was a wanderer at heart and this sometimes took him and his family down a wandering path. Pop first left Montana as a young man with a new family at the beginning of WW II to work in the shipyards at Portland, Oregon. Later, he enlisted in the army and became a paratrooper, and was stationed at Ft Benning, Georgia. He came back after the war to meet us at Chemawa Indian School at Salem Oregon where he and mom worked for the BIA. But he had an interest in Alaska, so we were off to Sitka, where he worked at an Indian Hospital there. Three years later we were headed back to Montana where Pop became the Treasurer of the Blackfeet tribe. Just a year or so later, he had an opportunity to try ranching with mom’s father, Smith O’Bryan, on the Ft Belknap Reservation. So he took it, and we moved on. When things didn’t work out too well there, Pop decided to get back into welding, and we left for Spokane, Washington. Times were tough in Spokane, with little work available, but then, after 6 or 7 months, Pop heard of big things happening in the Dakotas on the Missouri River where the Corps of Engineers was building several major dams. So we left Spokane bound for Pickstown, South Dakota where Pop found a good paying job welding on the Ft. Randall dam. When welding work on the dam was finished we moved on to Minneapolis. There, Pop worked on many construction projects in Minneapolis, and around that state for about 5 years.
In 1960, Pop decided to return to Montana, to try the ranching and farming business again at Ft. Belknap reservation. In this endeavor he worked in partnership with Tim for several years. He then returned to the hospital administration field, where he worked at the agency hospital at Ft. Belknap until he retired.
But Pop wasn’t through wandering just yet. It’s sad to recall, but after 45 years of marriage he and Mom were divorced. After this, he met and married Rosalie Scott who lived in Idaho. Pop then lived in Idaho for several years before finally returning to Montana for good in the late 1990’s where he lived in Great Falls, with his companion Gladys Cantrell. His last trip was back home to Browning, and the Blackfeet Care Center three years ago. There his wandering days finally ended.
Pop was proud man, proud to be a Blackfoot, and though he lived for a long time in the white world he never forgot his heritage, even in those times and places when this wasn’t easy. He was proud to have been an excellent welder, and he was, because I saw his work and he was among the best. He was proud to have known the ranching and farming business. He was proud to have served his country in the military, and was proud to have been a paratrooper, and also to be a member of the Blackfeet Warrior Society. He took a lot of pride in his appearance, and in his younger days was always a very classy dresser, wearing only the best clothes. In those days, and even as he grew older, he cut quite a figure with the ladies, and he was a real charmer. I think he took pride in his three sons, and Jamie too, and he thought that, by gosh they didn’t turn out half bad.
Pop had a range of interests in his lifetime. He was an outgoing person, and he liked to socialize, probably the result of being raised in a large and happy family. He liked to have a drink, sometimes a little too often, but in the end I think he was able to chase that demon away. As a welder, he was quite active in the union, serving on union boards and attending union functions frequently, especially in Minneapolis. He had a lifelong interest in fishing, and I would say that he caught as many fish in his 91 years as any man. In Alaska he had a nice boat with outrigger poles, and a commercial fishing license, and he spent a good part of his spare time fishing for salmon, mostly for sport, but he would sell a lot of the huge salmon he caught to the cannery at Sitka. He was also a mighty hunter, and when we lived in Montana it seemed like we ate mostly venison, elk, mountain sheep, pheasants, sage hens, and almost every other kind of game. He liked Indian and western art, and had collected as much as he could afford over the years.
To sum up his long life is not easy, but I would say he always tried to be fair and honest, and he loved his family. He led a productive life, and many of the things he helped build still stand today, and will last for years into the future. They are part of his legacy. I don’t know if he pondered much about the universe and his place in it, or about an afterlife, but I don’t think he ever abandoned a belief that some day he would be summoned by a higher power to account for his behavior in his earthly life, and with any luck he just might pass muster. So Pop, though we must say goodbye for now, we’re know that some day we’ll meet again in a better place.
Gerald M. (Mike) Welch
June 3, 2006
At Dupuyer Cemetery, Dupuyer, Montana
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