Place of Her Own

Elizabeth Garrett's Life and Achievements

Born blind, Elizabeth Garrett overcame many handicaps to become self-sufficient and a nationally-known musician, singer and composer. In an age when women were still struggling for their independence, she developed a career that took her around the country. She neither sought nor accepted pity but, using her own resources, created a life and a philosophy that became a source of wonder to all who knew her.

Daughter of controversial and famed frontier sheriff Pat Garrett (who was noted for ending the career of Billy the Kid) and a Hispanic mother, Elizabeth successfully bridged the time gap between the still lawless days of early New Mexico and the transitions brought about by World War II. A New Mexican who loved her native state, she was able to write of its beauties without ever having seen them.

She wrote "O Fair New Mexico," the state song, and was the state's first women's liberation advocate.

Photographs, illustrations, bibliography.