During the great struggle between the North and South, she was in a position to be much exposed to the vicissitudes and cruel experiences of the war. Deprived of her beautiful home, which it had been necessary to convert into a fortification for the defense of the city, she was for some time a resident between the two opposing armies. During the war she became the wife of Colonel Weiss, of the Union army, with whom she for some years resided in New York City. The marriage proved an unhappy one, and Mrs. Weiss was compelled to sue for divorce and possession of their only child. As she declined to accept alimony, and had been by the war deprived of nearly all her property, she bent her energies to the support of herself and child, in the field of prose and story-writing. She succeeded in that new exercise of her talents. She contributed to New York newspapers, to "Harper's," "Scribner's" and other magazines, until incessant application to writing brought on a painful affection of the eyes, which for some years incapacitated her for the use of her pen. Of late years she has published little. She now resides with her son, in Richmond. In 1859 she had a volume of her poems printed in a very small edition and distributed among editors and critics, by whom it was received with flattering notice, but the commencement of the war troubles, interfering with literary enterprises, prevented the publishing of a second edition, so that the book was never offered to the public.
WELBORN, Mrs. May Eddins, journalist, born near Demopolis, Ala., 25th February, 1860. She is the youngest child of a family of eight children. She was educated in the Judson Female Institute, Marion, Ala., where she was graduated in 1876. Her first literary work was done a year before graduation, when she began to write for the children's department of the Louisville "Courier Journal." Her life, when not in boarding-school, was spent in her plantation home. The blood of old patriots flows in her veins. Her grandfather was Benjamin Eddins, a pioneer of South Carolina. Through her mother she was descended from Charles Stewart, a Scotchman, who before the Revolution fled from religious persecutions to America, settling in South Carolina, thence moving to Georgia and finally to Alabama. The first work of Miss Eddins that attracted much attention were papers in the "Home and Farm." Those papers attracted the attention of one of the most noted agricultural editors and writers of the South, Col. Jeff Welborn, who. learning after much effort the writer's name, for Miss Eddins had written over a pen-name, went from Texas to Alabama to see the writer whose work had so pleased him. The writer herself pleased him even more than her work, and it was not long ere Col. Welborn persuaded her to become Mrs. Welborn, and they were married 23rd October, 1890. Mrs. Welborn has, since the death of her mother in 1891, been able to write but little. Her suburban home, an experimental farm in New Boston, Texas, is an ideal one for an agricultural writer and scientific farmer and his wife who is prepared by education, training and choice to understand and appreciate all of her husband's labors. They have one child.
WELBY, Mrs. Amelia B. Coppuck, author, born in St. Michael's, Md., 3rd February, 1819, and died in Louisville, Ky., 3rd May, 1852. She removed with her lamily to Louisville in 1835 She received a careful education, and in 1838 she became the wife of George B. Welby, a merchant of Louisville. In 1837, under the pen-name "Amelia," she contributed a number of striking poems to the Louisville "Journal," and she soon acquired a reputation as a poet of high powers. She published in 1844 a small volume of poems, which quickly passed through several editions. It was republished in 1850, in New York, in enlarged form, with illustrations by Robert W. Weir. Mrs. Welby was a petite, slender woman, dark-eyed and brown-haired. Her work is notable for its delicacy of diction, its elevation of sentiment and its fineness of finish.
WELCH, Miss Jane Meade, journalist and historical lecturer, was born in Buffalo, N. Y. She comes of New England stock. She received a good education and had the ambition to pursue a college course. In her sophomore year she was taken seriously ill, and her college course was abandoned perforce. She was an invalid for two years. After recovering her health, she entered journalism. She began with a year of service as a general writer on the Buffalo "Express." She next joined the staff of the Buffalo "Courier" as
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JANE MEADE WELCH.
society editor and occasional writer of editorial articles. She added to her duties the preparation and conduct of a woman's work column. She served on the "Courier" for ten years, and was the first woman in Buffalo to make a profession of journalism. She kept up her studies in history, and finally prepared a series of lectures on historical subjects, which she first delivered to friends in her own home. She next presented her lectures in the Chautauqua Assembly, and her success was instant. She was at once engaged for the next year to deliver a series of lectures on American history in the university extension course. In February, 1891, she gave a series of six lectures in the Berkeley Lyceum Theater in New York City, and success crowned her venture. The most prominent society and literary people of the metropolis patronized her lectures. She repeated the series in Mrs. Reed's school in New York City, and in Ogontz Seminary.
