Remembering Grandpa Rex

My grandfather died when I was just six years old, leaving me with only the faintest of memories. He lived out of state, and my encounters with him were few. Complicating matters, my grandparents divorced when my mother was still a small child, and her relationship with her father was estranged. My mother rarely spoke of Grandpa Rex, so much of what I now know about my him has come about only through my genealogical research.

The photo below was taken some time during the Holidays, 1970. That’s me in the red, sitting to my grandpa’s left. The girls are my younger sisters. Grandpa Rex had come to California from Colorado for a visit. Amazingly, I still have some vague memories of that day. I remember him as a large, pipe-smoking man who, to my young mind, exuded the rugged air of a mountain man. That impression was likely enhanced by the gift he brought me during that visit: my very own Davy Crockett coonskin cap. That cap became one of my most cherished possessions, and more than half a century later, it still sits proudly on display in my den.

My next memory of Grandpa Rex was my mother packing for his funeral. I never saw him again.

Rex Lowell Welch was born on April 12, 1915, in the small rural community of Clarks in Merrick County, Nebraska. He was the only child of Joseph William and Lucinda Catherine (Putman) Welch. Around 1927, Rex and his parents relocated from Nebraska to Fort Collins, Colorado, where his father served as a city police officer.

Rex attended the local public schools and was later a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, when he met my grandmother. They were married in 1937, and by 1940, had moved to Southern California for reasons I have yet to uncover. Rex worked as an engineer, initially employed by the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal). My uncle Doug was born in August 1940, followed by my mother in February 1945.

On May 5, 1945, Rex enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps and was sent Wright Field in Ohio. There, he worked as a project engineer, structural integrity, on the B-29 bomber. While I have not yet obtained his military records, uncovering details about his service is high on my to-do list. I know little about his time in the military, although it does not appear he was ever sent overseas and thus would not have seen combat. What I have been told, is that returned a changed man home a changed man. Family lore - admittedly biased - has painted him as a womanizer and an alcoholic, and perhaps he was—but as with all of us, the headlines tell only part of the story.

By the 1950s, my grandparents had divorced. Rex would marry and divorce two more times after that. I do know that he worked for a time at Consolidated Engineering Corp. in Pasadena, a chemical instrument manufacturer founded by Herbert Hoover Jr., and later as an engineer for William Miller Scientific Instruments, also based in Pasadena. Beyond that, his life remains a mystery to me.

At some point, Rex returned to Colorado, though I do not know when or why. He was living there when he passed away on July 27, 1971, at just 56 years of age. The cause of death was an undiagnosed glioblastoma - an aggressive brain tumor.

My Coonskin Cap (age 54)

I don’t know much about the kind of man my grandfather was. I don’t know the root of his marital troubles or why he struggled as a father to my mother. I don’t know how the war shaped him or the role it played in his drinking. But I do know this: one day, when I was just a little boy, he drove all the way from Colorado to see me and he brought me a coonskin cap. That means he loved me, and I have always loved him back. 

[David M. Randall > Mary C. Welch > Rex L. Welch]