Bill Welch: The Philosopher Prince

By: Sally A. Heffentreyer

As published in the April 2002 issue of State College Magazine

 

“When I was about 10 years old, I started hanging around Pattee,” Bill Welch says as he leans on a conference table in a small room in Penn State’s Paterno Library. “In those days, access to books and booze was pretty much the same. In both cases, you had to have a clerk fetch things for you; you couldn’t browse the inventory. Things have improved on both fronts.”

Welch, beginning a typical day as the mayor of State College, reaches for a white plastic cup of water and takes a sip before continuing. He is talking with a group of Penn State students in a Library Studies seminar, and introduces them to the State College community by telling stories.

The students respond with grins and giggles as Welch relates a bit of borough history. He clearly enjoys entertaining them, but Welch’s true mission is to teach the student something about the history of the community. In November of last year, he turned 60 and was elected to a third four-year term as mayor. He has lived in the borough since he was two, so he has a lot to share.

Welch tells tales of Hoy Brothers General Merchandise, a store on West College Avenue (at the former Appalachian Ski & Outdoors and present site of Zola New World Bistro), where he spent countless hours of his youth. “The store sold products like Woolrich hunting gear and blue jeans,” Welch says. “And had a soda fountain where I drank astonishing quantities of Pepsi and Coke.” When Hoy Brothers closed in 1973 after 40 years of doing business on West College Avenue, Welch, who was then managing editor at the Centre Daily Times, wrote a story about it.

In the article, Welch described what the store meant to him by indentifying himself in the story only as “One store patron”:

                        “He first passed through those double swinging doors in 1947. He was six years old and his father had moved his offices into the house next door. The high point of the youngster’s week was a Saturday morning visit to his father’s office. But the real goal of those visits was next door.”

 “This is how it started, with a taste for Cokes and Pepsis mixed by hand with lemon or vanilla or cherry syrup added; with salt-crusted pretzels and ice cream made right there in the store.”

 Welch tells the students about a cast of eccentric characters who passed through the doors. For example, the lights in the store were turned on only places convenient for brothers Dick and Jim, and occasionally, a customer. They saw no reason to turn on the lights where they weren’t. According to legend, one item—a wheeled cart for trashcans—sold so well that it was discontinued because Dick decreed that, “too many people were in here bothering us for them.”

Welch says that some of his fondest memories came from Hoy Brothers, where he sipped soda, played pinball and enjoyed years of camaraderie. “It really was like [the television show] Happy Days in the 1950s in State College.”

Compared with his days of youth, Welch’s life now gives him no time to sit at a soda fountain. The mayor has at least one ceremony, meeting or appearance every few days—weekends included. He signs proclamations and ordinances, and acts as an ambassador for the community. He also performs weddings; the most unusual was between a dancer and a doorman on the dance floor of The End Zone, the adult entertainment establishment on Route 322.

Welch retired in June 2001 from his full-time job as editor at the American Philatelic Society’s publications after a serious illness, but retirement is busy, particularly every other Monday night when he runs State College Borough Council Meetings. Peter Marshall, borough manager, believes that Welch’s realistic outlook on life helps him as mayor. “He has a good historic framework, a good sense of humor, and he’s always been highly involved in the community. Cynthia Hanscom, a borough staff member who assists Welch, says, “He is low maintenance for me. He does a lot of work himself.”

In November 2001, Welch, a Democrat, won his third term by 367 votes—1,780 votes to Republican Jeffrey R. Kern’s 1,413. A Student Party candidate, Justin L. Leto, and a Libertarian, Robert J. Speers, also ran. This was the first time Welch faced as much opposition. Kern got onto the primary ballot as a result of a write-in campaigns spearheaded by some Republicans on borough council. Welch was seriously ill in the hospital during the spring primary. After his November victory, Welch said that he would work hard to make good on the trust voters placed in him. Welch cites his love for the community in a major factor in wanting to be mayor. “And it pays $8,000 a year,” he jokes. (The mayor is the only elected position in the borough that receives a paycheck.)

Nadine Kofman, a freelance writer and Welch’s spouse, says that he was born into public service. His father served on the State College Area School Board and was involved in many community ventures, including helping to found State College Swimming Pool Association and the Parkway Medical Center. William L. Welch, Sr., a physician, died November 14,1967 of lung cancer.

The mayor’s mother, Betty Welch Bice, died in September 2000 at age 84. In addition to working in Pattee Library’s Penn State Room, she was the first chair of the borough’s sign review board and belonged to many civic organizations, including the Centre County Historical Society and the Bellefonte Museum. Later in life she married Blair Bice, publisher of the Pennsylvania Mirror newspaper, a now defunct competitor of the Centre Daily Times. Bice died in 1989.

Finally at home at the end of a day filled with talks, meetings and paperwork, Welch is dressed in a maroon sweater, gray pants and black sneakers. He fits in comfortably, as does Kofman. She is fighting a cold and is bundled in heavy lounging clothes.

Badger, one of two cats in the household, sits so still on a chair that she appears to be a figurine. But once she moves, she is not shy about jumping up on the lap of a visitor sitting at the kitchen table. Badger purrs and kneads with her paws while the conversation seems to lull her into a catatonic trance. Welch is the master of ceremonies in the large, cheerful kitchen, recounting some family history in what he kiddingly calls “Clutterhouse.”

Clutter, maybe. Stuff, definitely. Both Welch and Kofman are collectors. Welch worked for 16 years as the editor of The American Philatelist, the monthly 100-page magazine of the American Philatelic Society, a national stamp-collecting organization with headquarters in State College. He also edited the magazine’s sister publication, Philatelic Literature Review, a quarterly journal of the American Philatelic Library, the only journal of its kind devoted to the subject. He collects all things stamp-related and many things related to book publishing. Kofman collects memorabilia from the 1939 New York World’s Fair, other antiques, pottery, fabric-based artifacts and—well—anything that catches her eye. All that collecting in one house makes for setting that is cozy, to use the popular euphemism of real estate agents. The Cape Cod style house in College Heights was familiar to Welch when he and Kofman were shopping for a home. When he was a child, his friend John Frink’s family lived in it. The Frinks built the house in 1939. He has fond memories of time spent there.

Maps, paintings and photographs gloriously cover the walls in no particular order, along with many built-in shelves stuffed with books. In a sunroom that was added to the house by Welch and Kofman shortly after they moved into it in1980, a full-size white wooden carousel horse stands mid-prance by the side door. On shelves at the opposite end of the room are pottery pieces, some made by artists Kofman knows. Windows look out onto a deck and a yard bordered by trees and bushes—what Welch calls their version of an English garden tended by Kofman.

Things in the Welch/Kofman household moved at a cat’s pace, and you can almost hear the humans purring with contentment. Kofman excuses herself and pads of into one of the other rooms to rest in front of the TV and catch up on the world situation. Welch mentions that the then New York mayor Rudy Giuliani did a fabulous job in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. In fact, he says, Giuliani generally was doing an outstanding job before that too. “A little whiff of fascism seems to work well in New York,” he says with a wry smile, referring to Giuliani’s campaign to clear ne’er-do-wells from city streets.

At the green marble kitchen table, Welch sips apple cider and talks about his family. Welch is the eldest of five children, all of whom live elsewhere: Jim (58), retired from the foreign service and painting water colors; Michael (“around 50”), working on the civilian side of the Army; John Patrick (“at least 48”), living a life very much like their father, a physician with five children; and Elizabeth, the youngest, who is an Episcopal priest married to an Episcopal priest.

Welch was born in 1941 in Philadelphia, where his father was attending Jefferson Medical College. When Welch Sr. finished school, he went into the military service in the South Pacific. Welch’s paternal grandparents lived in State College, so his mother, younger brother, Jim and he moved to the borough where he has lived ever since.

Welch has two daughters from his first marriage. Jennifer, 34, and Jessica, 31, and one daughter from his current marriage, Justine, who turned 22 on her father’s 60^th birthday, November 23, 2001. Welch and Kofman met when Welch’s first marriage had broken apart. They both worked at the Centre Daily Times, where she started as a proofreader and he was managing editor. “I noticed this woman in the proofreading room with green toenail polish,” he said of their first encounter. The two got acquainted and eventually moved in together. “Through a process of inertia, we decided to get married,” Welch says. Kofman jokes that they got married because she wanted Welch to start paying the rent. Welch spent 21 years at the Centre Daily Times, starting out as a reporter in 1964 and later moving on to managing editor. He was executive editor and general manager when he resigned in 1985.

Jennifer Welch works at Penn State and Jessica Welch for Hoag’s Catering; both live in Bellefonte. They and Justine shared bedside vigils during Welch’s bout with double pneumonia this spring. During that recuperation period, Jennifer said her father showed that he is a fighter.

“He never felt sorry for himself, and he has not missed a beat,” she said. “I think that he more energy than I have,” she added with a laugh. The Rev. Thomazine (Timmy) Shanahan, an Episcopal priest like Welch’s sister, recalled that when Kofman called her about Welch’s illness, she knew it was serious because Welch had told the doctors to list her as a clergy contact and he is not religious. Shanahan’s father, Jerome Weinstein, was executive editor at the Centre Daily Times when Welch was managing editor, so the families have had a connection for a long time.

When visiting Welch at the hospital, Shanahan knew the moment he turned the corner toward recovery. “He was in a wheelchair in his room, wearing his stamp jacket, joking around, as usual,” The “stamp jacket” is a black silk jacket with foreign stamps printed all over it, in line with his passion.

Welch’s love for philately began when he was a child. He used to imagine all the places that stamps had traveled before he received them. Covers—the collector’s term for envelopes that have gone through the mail—are particularly interesting to him because older ones have history written and/or stamped on them, with names, addresses and brief messages. The man has such a vast knowledge of philately, no description could do it justice. He and Kofman love to travel, but Welch can travel on his own by poring over his philatelic treasures.

Welch wrote a retirement column in the September 2001 issue of The American Philatelist titled, “Ave Atque Vale, APS,” meaning “Hail and Farewell, American Philatelic Society.” He wrote: “A near fatal bout of septic double pneumonia this spring reminded me of a favorite quote, ‘Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.’ I got the message and have retired from the job.”

Welch’s health has long had an effect on his life and on the lives of his family members. In 1993, he suffered from kidney failure and went on dialysis for 10 months before qualifying for a transplant. “Jessica was first in line at Hershey [Medical Center],” Welch said of his middle daughter. Jessica was as a perfect match for the transplant as doctors could hope to find, and the operation took place on February 15, 1994. A news story in the Centre Daily Times on February 14 said, “Jessica Welch will not give her father a heart, but a kidney, for Valentine’s Day this year.”

Jessica can’t remember much about the ordeal except that it seemed to be a whirlwind. “I know that his condition had been deteriorating over time, but it still seemed to come out of the blue,” she said. For her, the operation was more involved than for her father because procedures were not as advanced as they are now. She had to have a rib removed to allow doctors access to her kidney. Said Welch at the time, “It has positively biblical overtones.” Both father and daughter recovered quickly.

As the clock edges toward a late hour in the Welch/Kofman kitchen, Welch takes a breath after giving a tour of the house and reflects on the past year. Besides the election victory, it was a long, hard year, including national as well as personal strife. Welch’s illness and the resulting outpouring of good wishes and the rescue efforts surrounding the September 11 tragedy remind him of the importance of community.

After his return from the hospital in May 2001, the family had a celebration-of-life party at daughter Jessica’s house. He was happy to be with family, looking ahead while preserving memories. Longtime friend R. Thomas Berner, a professor of journalism and American Studies at Penn State, goes so far as to say that nostalgia may be what makes Welch tick. Berner has known Welch since the late 19602, and worked with him in the early 1970s at the Centre Daily Times. Berner considers Welch a delightful storyteller. “The story about the Hoy Brothers closing might be the best thing he ever wrote. Bill uses first-person without making a story about himself.” Welch’s sense of history makes it an ever-present part of his life. His family history includes a genealogy that says his mother’s ancestors were princes living between the Wye and Severn Rivers in the west of England in the 600s and 700s, although Welch cautions that may not be accurate.

“Who knows?” Welch says, shrugging his shoulders. “But my mother raised us as though we were little princelings. We were held to a sort of princely standard of conduct and achievement.” In fact, Welch’s brother Jim sometimes refers to him as the “philosopher prince in his mountain kingdom.”

With his siblings spread all over the country, his daughter Justine living in Minneapolis, and his family and friends sure that he could do anything he was to do because of his intelligence and strength of character, what has made Welch content to live in State College for so many years?

His history here. In this setting, he can measure his memories against the future every day. He doesn’t feel restricted by geographical boundaries. He grows here. In his words: “I have always thought that State college has a great deal in common with Shangri La.” The night has drawn to a close and Welch escorts a visitor to the door, opening it wide to the outside. ~SCM

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