Babb, Jewel, 1900-

The daughter of a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, freelance writer and editor Pat Ellis Taylor was born on June 23, 1941, in Bryan, Texas. Taylor traveled extensively with her family prior to attending the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), earning a B.A. in 1969 and M.A. in 1976. In addition, she pursued a doctoral study at the University of Utah from 1976 to 1978. Pat married Chuck Taylor and later changed her name to Pat LittleDog.

While at UTEP, Taylor became familiar with the Big Bend and Trans-Pecos regions of Texas, recording the oral history of Jewel Babb (b. 1900) of Valentine, Texas. Their conversations about the region’s people, its folklore, and Babb’s healing powers became the basis of Babb and Taylor’s books, Border Healing Woman: The Story of Jewel Babb (1981) and Goat-lore: a Book of Folklore and Folklife from the Rio Grande (1980).