Lora Ann Demille
Born 2 June 1828, in Colesville New York. granddaughter of Joseph Knight and Polly Peck and daughter of Anna Knight and Freeborn Demille. As a 3 year old they moved to Missouri to build up Zion and she then experienced the mobbing and persecution that drove them out of the state by the time she was 11. As a young teenager she saw the birth and growth of Nauvoo. She turned 16 the month that Joseph and Hyrum were murdered. She was almost 18 when the Church left Nauvoo. Her family was at Winter Quarters and Mt. Pisgah Iowa for a couple of years. At age 20 in 1848, she married Samuel Kendall Gifford (link to his journal) and her first son, my GGrandfather Alpheus was born there in Iowa in 1849 . When they finally moved west, they settled first in Manti and then later moved to Southern Utah. The family homestead was actually inside the boundaries of Zions Canyon National Park.
She died in 1870. As an indication of when photography came to that part of Utah, we have no picture of her but do have pictures of both her parents and her husband and both of his parents, all of whom died later than 1877.
She is also the name sake for our Laura, but at the last minute we changed the spelling. So Laura and Anna come from this mother daughter pair.
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