Junella May Welch
February 13, 1936 - October 25, 2026
OBITUARY
My mom, Junella Welch was born on February 13th 1936. When Junella was 12 her mother abandoned her and her little brother Larry and her little sister who we all called Siss. Junella's father was drafted into the war so she was completely abandoned and forced to live in an old train box car with her little brother and sister who were both babies. Those three children were passed around for years from home to home. My mother told me horror stories about it when we sat on the back deck together.
Junella Welch turned out to be an artist taking after her father who was a major building contractor from Stockton California. Junella made every square inch of her house and yard a work of art. But she also spent her entire life supporting her husband Kimo Welch that she met in an orphanage during the second world war. Her husband became a world authority in Vacuum Technology working at Stanford Linear accelerator and Brookhaven National Laboratory. She was in the habit of getting up at 4:00 every morning to support her husband in the book he wrote on this industry that became a very famous book.
Junella also had three children with her husband, 2 boys and one girl. When Junella and her husband retired in Pollock Pines California 26 years ago, they designed a home and had it built just for the two of them deep in the woods. The two of them spent the rest of their lives together with several little dogs as their pets. Junella's husband died in 2015 and she spent the last 11 years single in her home built among the forest with hundreds of pine and cedar trees that were 20 stories tall. But she also had many dogwood trees that she would shape and transplant.
Junella, with the help of her daughter Teri, joined Facebook where Junella met a man named Carl and he fell in love with her and bought a house a few miles from her, and they spent 5 years together as companions. Eventually Carl had to move up north to Washington with his 3 boys because he is now 97 years old. But there is romance at all ages.
During Junella's final years and months she asked her older son to come and stay with her in the house she was living in for 26 years to instruct him of all the details in how she would take care of her home and the artwork all around the property that she made. This was her wonder land with concrete dolls and animal statues all over the yard, because as a child while in the orphanage, all the other little girls received dolls but she did not. She has grave stones for all of her puppies in her past, but her final puppy was named Baby, and a week before she passed she gave her puppy to her brother Larry Bowers who took the puppy home to live with him and his little dog. She was so happy to have this work out, she mentioned how happy she was to provide a home for her puppy.
My mom Junella May Welch died on October 25th on a Sunday at 1:59 in the afternoon 2026. I was by her side day and night for her final months. She said she was ready to go, and she thanked me for being there and being so patient. In her final days we never argued but we would discuss everything and yielded to each other out of respect for life itself, because we only live once.
Cherokee Memorial is honored to serve the Welch family.
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