Eliza Jane Morfoot was born on July 13, 1846, in Ohio to Charles Morfoot and Elizabeth Boyer. Her father was a bricklayer who owned $500 of real estate by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Bucyrus, Ohio, and she married Philip Gelbach either on July 3, 1865, or on July 1, 1868. They had two children: Lula, born around 1866; and Charles, born around 1870.
They lived in Whetstone, Ohio, and her husband worked as a laborer. By 1910, they had returned to Bucyrus. She was a member of the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, and she was an active member of the church’s Ladies Aid Society. A local writer declared her “one of the best known citizens of the city of Bucyrus.” In early 1914, she suffered a “sudden attack of the heart,” and she died in Bucyrus on April 2, 1914.