Victor Welker was the detestable, coldhearted, non-biological father of Lois and the husband of the equally evil Ida. He appeared in the episode The Grandparents but was never seen again as it was mentioned that he had died soon after. He would be mentioned multiple times later in the series.
Although Ida reappeared multiple times after this, Victor never appeared again because he was mentioned to have died of a heart attack in the episode Christmas. With the slightly qualifying exception of Ida, none of his family missed him, not even Reese, who was the only kid who was even remotely respected by him. Clearly revealing that Reese obviously hates him for almost getting him and Malcolm killed by giving Reese a live grenade powerful enough to obliterate the house had Malcolm not put the grenade in the confined space of the new refrigerator.
Biography[]
He was presumed to have married Ida Kenzel in the early 1960s’ and had two daughters, Lois and Susan Welker. However in Baby Part 2, she reveals to Lois about his other family in Manitoba. In Victor's Other Family, it was revealed that Victor wasn't legally married to Ida at all and that his real wife was, Sylvia Welker, the whole time. He had two more daughters with her Roberta Welker and an unknown daughter. Victor was a loving husband to Sylvia and an idyllic father to his three girls: Roberta, his other daughter and Susan(his only daughter with Ida). He treated Lois horribly mainly because he suspected she wasn't his daughter the whole time. Victor was also revealed to have hated Ida in his youth and suspected she had an affair with another man.
He even told Hal on his and Lois's wedding day in 1982, that he could have done better, implying that he, like Ida and Hal's wealthy family, were all disappointed in him for not picking Susan over Lois. He also viewed Hal as being unable to support the family. Hal likewise despised Victor greatly and in "The Grandparents" took utter joy in blackmailing him for $3000 after he gave a live grenade to Reese and destroyed the fridge at the threat of having him and Ida thrown in jail for child endangerment.
Personality[]
However though Victor believed in strength and hard work, he was a deceitful, bitter, bigamous man. His first appearance was in the episode The Grandparents, where he and Ida visited the family and gave them all a hell of a time. Victor hated and disowned all his grandchildren except Reese whom he truly loved and adored because he shared the same despicable nature as him and Ida. This is because Victor thought of him as the only person capable of carrying on the family name and that his behavior reminded them of Susan since she was strong like them. He viewed Francis as being a no-good delinquent. He and Ida severely loathed and disrespected Malcolm, due to their views that they had about Lois being weak all her life. To them, he inherited all of his mother's weak traits. Victor obliviously abused Dewey as an infant and nearly killed him as a toddler. Examples included him dropping Dewey as a baby, and as a toddler, backing his car up and not seeing Dewey in rear view and running over his tricycle. He appeared to have a good relationship with Ida in the later years, which later proved false. In Baby Part 2, she found out that Victor still keeps a photo of Sylvia whom he still loves with all his heart and tells Lois about his affair outside their "marriage".
It was revealed that he actually hated Ida and was greatly disgusted by her greedy behavior. The only reason Victor stayed with her is because of Susan whom he loved with all his heart. There were times he wanted to take her away from Whitehorse and have her live with his real family in Manitoba. However, Victor knew how that would anger Ida because she doesn't want Susan taken away from her and be left with Lois, the daughter she hated all her life.
Relationships[]
Malcolm[]
Like everyone else, he is bitter and conceited towards Malcolm. He and Ida alike both view Malcolm as a weakling. He berates Malcolm as a little girl despite transitioning to puberty and refuses to appreciate his genius. It is likely, however, that he fears Malcolm's academic gifts, bragging that instead of going to school, he went to war. Hence, even when Lois tried to help Malcolm get her father's admiration of him, he shuts down Malcolm's achievements to put him down. He actively singles Malcolm out of any activities he does with Reese. He also openly mocks Malcolm for being well-mannered when eating pizza with knife and fork. It is likely he sees all of what he despises of Malcolm being just like his least favorite daughter, Lois.
Ida Welker[]
In their first appearance, they seem to have a stable relationship and their only probably would be as bad parents. They always seemed to be in sync on how they treat Lois and others around them, and even viewing Reese as the future for their family bloodline. Ida even misses him when he dies at some point prior to the episode Christmas. However, it is later revealed their marriage was more toxic than being bad parents to their kids. Ida revealed in Baby Part 2, Victor had a secret other family in Manitoba, Canada, which was later expanded on in Victor's Other Family. He shown how much he despised the family he had with Ida as he did not provide them decently while spoiling his other family. Despite this, Ida still wanted to prove she was Victor's wife and get his pension from his employment from 1960, as she wanted something tangible to feel connected to him.
However, Ida was no better than Victor on remaining faithful as she also had an affair with a man named Radu Gogorsky, because she was lonely with all of Victor's "business trips." This revealed Radu Gogorsky to be Lois's real father as she came back negative to being Victor's daughter.
Lois[]
Victor and Lois were revealed since his debut appearance to have an awful relationship. Most of what is known is based on Lois's reaction when they first show up and the stories Lois tells of her childhood. In his first appearance, he with Ida just barges in without notice and expect hospitality. He constantly puts her down and berates her, probably worse than anyone. Showing how he does not support her and Hal's marriage. Unlike most parents, however, it is not because he does not like Hal, but he does not like Hal marrying Lois and wanted him to marry his other daughter Susan. As Lois's father, he has abused her as a child by punishing her by locking her in the closet and feeding her poorly and getting her drunk. To him, Lois's only accomplishment was giving birth to his favorite grandchild Reese.
In Victor's Other Family, it was revealed that Victor is not Lois's father. While it is unclear if Victor did know, but this could explain why he treated her so poorly while doting on her sister, Susan. As despite raising Lois, he refused to acknowledge her as his child while Susan was biologically his. Lois, however, even after learning this still believes it does not change anything as he raised her all his life, albeit abusively and poorly. Lois gets one last spite to Victor beyond the grave as she calls out how both Ida and his other wife, Sylvia should be angry and hateful towards Victor instead of each other because of his bigamy.
Hal[]
Like everyone else, he and Ida berate and put Hal down as well. In their debut episode, they take every opportunity to humiliate and mock him as husband and provider. Initially, it appeared they were just disapproving of their marriage and Hal as an unfit son-in-law. It is however, revealed that Hal was previously in a relationship with their other daughter and Lois's sister, Susan. Therefore, like Hal's parents, they just were against Hal marrying Lois and Hal should have married Susan instead. Nonetheless, he has berated Hal as a bad provider as they do not have good financial health and a broken fridge. Victor offered them $800 to buy a new fridge, which Lois believed if they accepted, her parents would use this as an excuse to humiliate and berate Hal. Hal, however, accepts this as they already treat him terribly now. After they bought a new fridge, however, Victor changed his mind with giving them the money and they were forced to work plenty of overtime and ask Victor and Ida for an extended stay to look after the children. After Victor gave Reese a live grenade which blew up the fridge and endangered the children, he calmly sat them down and blackmailed them into giving him $3,000 so he can replace the fridge and pay off some bills. They were forced to agree as Hal would have called the police to have them arrested for child endangerment. Like anyone else who hates Lois, Hal greatly despises his father-in-law and wanted his family to hide when they showed up and hated having to show hospitality to them.
Francis[]
While we do not see an in-person interaction with them, Francis and Victor greatly despise each other. This was evident in Victor's only appearance in The Grandparents as Malcolm was on the phone with Francis. Francis responded with disgust when Malcolm revealed to him his grandparents came to visit, even though Francis is not living at home. Francis described Victor as "a malevolent old troll" and Victor shoots back with Francis being "a no-good delinquent" although they did not know they were insulted by each other with those remarks as Malcolm just told each of them, they just said hi. Ida does remark how Francis looks just like his grandfather, although this can now be contradicted as he is not biologically related to Victor, since he is not Lois's biological father.
Reese[]
Unlike everyone else around him, Victor actually likes Reese and considers him the heir to the family bloodline. Reese is Victor and Ida's favorite grandchild. Like his grandfather, Reese is brutish and rough on the edges and relies on his strength over brains. Victor spoils Reese with activities to do together and always has gifts for him. He treats Reese very well and Malcolm poorly parallel to how he treated Susan well compared to Lois. However, he made a near-fatal mistake to gift Reese live ammunition, which included a live grenade which almost endangered not only himself but the children as well. He expressed no remorse and no guilt for it. 
Dewey[]
He pays poor attention to Dewey. This, however, makes him so oblivious and irresponsible of looking after Dewey. Dewey shows great terror when his grandparents visit as he remembers them dropping him when he was a baby and runs away. He does it again as he remembered how Victor almost backed his car into Dewey as a toddler who was riding his tricycle. Dewey gets off to avoid getting hit only for Victor to drive off without any realization of taking Dewey's trike with him. These memories had a clear trauma on Dewey who constantly look at them in fear throughout their visit.
Susan[]
While never seen on-screen, it is known from Lois's stories as well as Susan and their parents that he and Ida doted on Susan. She was their flower child who was considered the pretty one and with all the talent while Lois is the black sheep. This is likely why Victor still had a relationship with Ida despite having the secret affair, as Susan is actually his biological daughter with Ida compared to Lois. However, Susan's childhood while better than Lois's was not perfect with their parents. She, along with Lois, was not well taken care of by Victor. Ida described that both girls turned out so short and ugly as he only fed them on canned beans. They were not very well clothed either as there was a few times they were both dressed like hobos. With Susan being Victor's favorite child with Ida, he was greatly against Hal marrying Lois and in favor of when he was dating Susan. It was implied despite Victor's poor treatment of both of them, Susan was able to get away with getting back at Victor. Lois mentioned how Victor once punished them both by not allowing them dessert and Susan took Victor's bowl of pudding and dumping it on his head saying "neither do you," which made Lois laugh that she fell over and hit her head on the coffee table. After that, he decided that he wants her to live with Sylvia and his other daughters. However, Victor knew if he takes Susan away with him, he would face the wrath of Ida who clearly doesn't want him to leave her with Lois.
Sylvia[]
Unlike his other family, Victor treated Sylvia and his children with her wonderfully. He was very happy with his life with her and the 2 daughters he had with Sylvia. What is learned of Sylvia's relationship with Victor was through her stories as Victor already died before the Ida and Lois could ever find out about his bigamy. Sylvia described Victor being such a good man and kind-hearted. She also described he was not perfect and has come home grumpy from a hard day, but after being sat down and relaxed, he is the happiest man being so affectionate to her and their children. Victor was a better provider for Sylvia and her children with him by giving them a nicer home and a fancier living. However, once he was found out about his affair, this causes a feud between her and Ida, who accused Sylvia of stealing Victor as well as the life she deserved from him. Sylvia, like Ida, wanted to maintain that she is Victor's wife over the other to even refuse signing over Victor's one pension to Ida.
However, despite having a wonderful life with Victor, after finding out about the bigamy, Lois believes deep down, that Sylvia hates him. Lois calls out that despite legally or technically, Sylvia would be Victor's wife, she knows Ida was and that is why Sylvia hates her (or is angry with her). Lois believes, however, Sylvia's anger is misdirected at Ida, and that she is truly angry and hates Victor for his betrayal and bigamy. Sylvia is horrified and never wants Lois to repeat it again.
Roberta[]
Being Victor's daughter and the child of Sylvia, Roberta describes Victor to be a wonderful father. More stories about her life with Victor were described by Sylvia as being doted on. It was demonstrated when Roberta and Lois both reminisce about Victor how positive Roberta's memories were compared to Lois. It is likely because he provided much more to Sylvia and his children with her, it is likely that Roberta might be the favorite of all of Victor's daughters even over Susan, who is his favorite daughter with Ida. It is unknown, however, if he did ever meet his Roberta's children and what his relationship with his grandchildren through her was like as it was never talked about. It is implied it would have been good considering the family continues to live a good life.
Trivia[]
- Victor is one of the few recurring characters to have an in-series reason for ceasing to appear in the series. The real-life reason, being that his actor, Robert Loggia, had a whole lot of other projects and didn't have time to reprise his role and the in-series reason being that he died.
- Victor strongly resembled Francis in his youth. This is confirmed in a photo Ida kept of him in Christmas.
- However, given that Victor was Lois' stepfather, they are not related to each other, biologically.
- However, Francis has blue eyes, while Victor has dark eyes.
- Out of the Wilkersons, only Francis, Hal and Dewey doesn't know they're not related to Victor. Malcolm, Reese and Jamie became aware of this at the end of Victor's Other Family after Lois revealed everything.
- It was established that Victor hated Lois all her life mainly because he suspected that she was another man's child. The how and when part is unclear.
- It was also shown that even despite having a good relationship with Ida in the later years, he still hates her with a passion and which she is unaware of.
- The main reason aside her greed and chain smoking is because he found out about her affair that lead to Lois's birth.
- While Victor was cruel to Lois and blamed her for Ida's indiscretion due to her affair with Radu Gogorsky, he was a loving father to his other daughters, Roberta, her sister, and Susan (his only daughter with Ida).
- It is speculated that, given the evidence that he was from Croatia and that he possessed a crate full of war-supplies from "The Great War", that he was a former member of either the Yugoslav Partisans or the Croatian Ustaše.
- Since Victor died before Christmas, Jamie is the only grandchild he never meets.
- Fun fact: All of Victor's children were girls while all his grandchildren were boys.