Mothers in Israel I Have Known
LOUISE WELCH
By Wayne S. Walker
Louise Pitts Welch was born on December 13, 1921, in Itawamba County, Mississippi, the daughter of Dexter D. Pitts and Beulah Hester Pitts. She married Robert C. Welch of Railton, KY, and they had three children, son John and daughters Mary and Martha. Robert was a gospel preacher, and I first came to know him in the early 1970s when he would hold gospel meetings at Winchester, OH, near my hometown of Hillsboro, OH. After I began full-time preaching in 1974, he invited me to become a regular contributing writer for a quarterly religious magazine called Faith and Facts which he edited and published. I first met Louise in the very early 1980s when I was located in Medina, OH, and visited the Welches at their home in Erlanger, KY, to discuss with Robert the publication of a little booklet that I had written for high school graduates. Robert was then working with the Northern Kentucky church at Florence, KY.
In 1983, Karen and I stopped to worship with the Northern Kentucky church one Sunday evening while on our way home to Medina from a family reunion down near Glasgow in southern Kentucky. Robert and Louise invited us to their house for supper after the service. We would see the Welches at an annual series of summer lectures conducted by the High School Rd. church in Indianapolis, IN, where their son John preached. Then, after we moved to Dayton, OH, in 1987 and I began work with the Haynes St. church, we would see them more often while attending gospel meetings at Northern Kentucky and other congregations in the Cincinnati, OH, area. Robert and Louise visited at our home in Dayton one time when he spoke on “Modernism” during a special series of classes that we had at Haynes St.
Eventually Robert retired from full-time preaching due to health problems, and he and Louise moved to Indianapolis where Robert later served as an elder at High School Rd. for several years. We continued to see the Welches at the yearly lectures, and any other time we happened to be in Indianapolis we made an effort to stop by their house and visit with them. Louise was always such a gracious hostess. Robert died in 2003. Louise Welch passed away on July 3, 2020, at the age of 98, survived by her children, nine grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren. Solomon said of the virtuous woman, “Her children rise up and call her blessed” (Proverbs 31:28). How much more marvelous is it when her grandchildren rise up and call her blessed? I count among my good friends several of Louise Welch’s grandchildren.
Her grandson Nathanael Welch wrote, “She will be greatly missed by many. She was a preacher’s wife for most of her life, having lived in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indiana to my knowledge. She loved people, and the notes on the edges of her Bible were more numerous than any I have ever seen. If you would have had the opportunity, she would have wanted to teach you something she learned from scripture. She never hesitated to learn about you and where you were from. It didn’t matter who you were; she didn’t often shake hands as that was not her custom, but she might roll her wheelchair right up on you in church, and say, ‘Who are you?’ in a kind, jovial way.”
And another grandson, Josh Welch who preaches in Columbus, OH, shared the following: “For the past sixteen years, every time we visited grandma, she would say, ‘I was so blessed to be married to Robert Welch and I miss him so.’ Every time. At age 98, grandma went home to be with Jesus today…and I can just imagine her smiling when she gets to lock eyes with grandpa again too and so many more. My grandparents were a blessing to me.” And Josh, they were a great blessing to many others of us as well.
—in Faith and Facts Quarterly; October, 2019 (Vol. 46, No. 4); pp. 62-64
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