Laura Barbara Welhoff
1839 - 1891

Laura Barbara Welhoff was born on May 22, 1839, in Dearborn County, Indiana. She was the third child of Jacob and Wilhelmia Christina (Stahl) Welhoff, matives of Wurttemburg, Germany, and raised in Pennsylvania. The Welhoffs moved to beton County Missouri, about 1857. Laura was married there on February 2, 1858, to Charles Merrit Porter, a native of Vermont. Laura was nineteen, and Charles was about 36. The Porters soon moved to Kansas Territory where four children were born in Maysville, thrre of whom died in infancy. The family lived a brief time in St. Louis during this period. In 1867 or early in 1868 the Porters claimed a homestead near Minneapolis, Kansas, living in a cabin where two more children were born.

Charles Porter died of tuberculosis in 1874 at Wallace, Kansas, enroute to Colorado for his health, leaving Laura a widow with three young children.

On April 10,1876, Laura Porter was married second to Jonas Martin Gibbs. They moved to a farm east of Delphos, also in Ottawa County, Kansas. Three children were born to Laura and Jonas Gibbs, two of whom died in infancy.

Laura died at Delphos on August 10, 1891, at 52 years of age, four children surviving her. She was recalled as a kind and loving wife and mother, and is buried in the Delphos Cemetery.