Baby Doe Tabor of the most beautiful, flamboyant, and alluring women in the mining West". Her story inspired the opera "The Ballad of Baby Doe". Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt (or according to some accounts Elizabeth Nellis McCourt) was born in 1854 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin to Irish-Catholic immigrants Peter and Elizabeth McCourt. She later claimed to have been born in 1860. She appears to have been christened on October 7, 1854 at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church. Called Lizzie as a child, the fourth of eleven children, she grew up in a middle-class family in a two-story house. Her father was a partner in a
The Ballad of Baby Doe name is Baby Doe, and that she has a husband in Central City. Horace hears Baby singing "The Willow Song" and applauds her—much to her surprise since she did not know he was listening. He sings "Warm as the Autumn Light" to her. Augusta's comments from upstairs stop the scene. Scene 3 Several months later, Augusta goes through Horace's study and finds gloves and a love letter. She thinks they are for her until she finally realizes that they are for Baby Doe. The rumors have been true. Horace comes in, they fight and Horace says he never meant to