More than Pat Garrett's wife

We will never know much about her life, which ended after just 19 years. We also don't know much about her death, though much has been written about that.

What we do know is her memory is forever being reserved by family members who still care about her more than 140 years after her passing.

This is the story, as best it can be pieced together, of Juanita Martinez Garrett.

She's been in the news lately because the Wild West History Association and family members recently placed a memorial to her at the small cemetery south of Fort Sumner where the outlaw Billy the Kid is also buried.

Researchers believe she is buried at the site near family friend Lucien Maxwell and others who lived in the area in the 1870s.

She is best known as the first wife of legendary lawman Pat Garrett, who killed Billy the Kid in 1881. That's why Wild West lovers care about her today. That and her mysterious death.

Pat Garrett historian Mark Gardner wrote in his book "To Hell on a Fast Horse," that Juanita and her new husband were celebrating their recent marriage with friends when she became ill in the fall of 1879.

"(A)s the guests watched the newlyweds dance, Juanita suddenly collapsed in what was described as some kind of fit or attack. She was quickly carried to a bed in a nearby room, where she died the next day."

Her ancestors and some historians believe Juanita actually died about three weeks after her marriage to Garrett, but no one knows what caused her death. The family members who've been researching her life are mostly convinced she died from stress, concerned that her marriage had not been blessed by God.

"I was told that although Juanita was a devout Catholic, Pat Garrett wasn't," said Louise Espinoza Shaffer, whose great-grandmother was Juanita's sister.

"When they were married, the ceremony was not performed by a Catholic priest but by the Justice of the Peace. During the ceremony in Fort Sumner, a candle blew out and Juanita took it as an omen that her marriage wasn't real and not blessed of God."

As a result, Shaffer said, Juanita became "so sick with worry" that it led to her death.

Shaffer, who lives in Florence, Colo., said the same story has been told repeatedly through generations of other family members as well.

Whether stress caused her death or not, we know at least that Juanita's faith was an important part of her life.

Here's what else we know about her, through family research:

She was born in May 1860 to Antonio Domingo Martinez and Maria Manuela Trujillo in Taos, New Mexico Territory. She was the fourth child of seven, but three of her siblings died in infancy or during childbirth.

In April 1870, Shaffer said, Juanita's mother died while giving birth to a daughter who also died. The family lived in Cimarron at that time.

Soon after her mother's death, Juanita's uncle - Celedon Trujillo - moved to Fort Sumner with his employer, Lucien Maxwell. Trujillo took other family members with him, including Juanita and her sister Emilia.

"I think about Emilia and Juanita having to leave their father, their sister and little brother so soon after the death of their mother and it breaks my heart," Shaffer said. "How hard that must have been."

Something else we know about Juanita Martinez is that she grew into a "sparkling" young woman in Fort Sumner, who "had the charm of gaiety and light-heartedness." That's according to one of her friends, the late Paulita Maxwell Jaramillo of Fort Sumner, whose words appear in Walter Noble Burns' book, "The Saga of Billy the Kid: The Thrilling Life of America's Original Outlaw," published in 1925.

Juanita knew the Kid, who was closely acquainted with the Maxwells and Juanita's Uncle Celedon. But it was Garrett who captured her fancy, likely at a community dance. Juanita was "always surrounded by admirers at our dances," Jaramillo said. "Everyone loved her and mourned for her when an unkind fate changed her bridal gown into a shroud three weeks after her wedding."

So we do know a little about Juanita Martinez Garrett's life. She was a woman of strong faith, she overcame family tragedy as a child, she loved to dance, she was described as "sparkling," and her family cares enough about her to keep her legacy alive more than 140 years after her death.

We should all be so fortunate.

David Stevens writes about regional history for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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