Winifred Alice Vincent Taylor (1895-1971) is the granddaughter of true Montana pioneers. Her grandfather, William Asbury Fletcher (1829-1905), traveled to Bannack with his brother in 1863. He returned with his new bride, Ellen Gordon Fletcher (1841-1919), in 1866 in a covered wagon over the precarious Bozeman Trail. They settled in Summit then purchased ranch land near Meadow Creek (McAllister). Ellen's diary and letters to her family in New York are detailed in Susan Badger Doyle's book Diaries from the Bozeman Trail.  Winnie's parents, Mary Fletcher Vincent (1870-1918) and Jasper William Vincent (1866-1932), had their own ranch in the Madison Valley. Mary died in the 1918 flu pandemic that ravaged rural Montana.

Born in Science Hill, Kentucky, Emmett Gordon Taylor's (1890-1980) family moved to Livingston when he was ten years old. Managing the A.W. Miles grocery store in Livingston, he then worked as a salesman for Montana Flour Mills before opening his own real estate company in Missoula. Emmett and Winnie were married in 1914. They first lived in Livingston, where their two daughters, Cleda Taylor Laing and Dorothy Taylor Alexander, were born, and then moved to Missoula.

The Taylor Scholarship was established by their granddaughter, Denise Alexander Bittner, in 2014. It prefers students who demonstrate financial need and are pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in history, whose coursework and research displays a demonstrated interest in Western United States history, preferably Montana history.