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Paulita Maxwell
The eighth of nine Maxwell children, Paulita was born in Mora in 1864. She was 14 or 15 years old when she first met Billy the Kid at Old Fort Sumner.
Often when he was there in 1879 and 1880, the Kid and the black-haired, black-eyed beauty would dance together at the weekly bailes (dances) that were held in the Maxwells' community center, a long, narrow, low adobe building that was converted from officers' quarters, adjacent the two-storey Maxwell House. Paulita became one of Billy's queridas (sweethearts). She gave him a long, soulful kiss goodbye after the Kid was hauled to Old Fort Sumner after his capture at Stinking Springs in December, 1880, and shackled. Their relationship may have deepened during the final, desperate 10 weeks of Billy's life.
Like her mother, Paulita was in her room in the Maxwell House when Garrett shot and killed the Kid.
Her January, 1882, marriage to Jose Jaramillo, the son of a wealthy Los Lunas stock raiser, didn't last. But she bore a son, Telesfor; and two daughters, Adelina Jaramillo Wellborn and Luz Jaramillo Flanner. Her obituary in the Fort Sumner Leader, which described her as having been "…known for her beauty and wit,", also mentioned that "…after several months' illness, she died of Bright's disease …" at Old Ft. Sumner on December 17, 1929, and was buried the next day next to her parents' graves in the Old Ft. Sumner Cemetery.
