Ben Taub

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Ben Taub (1889-1982), philanthropist and medical benefactor, fourth child of Jacob Nathan Taub, was born in 1889 in Houston, Texas.

His father immigrated from Hungary to Texas in 1882 and became a tobacco wholesaler. Taub grew up in Houston, where he attended Welch Preparatory School. During World War I he was a captain and served in France. He returned to Texas and expanded the family business, later becoming a real estate developer. At one time he served on the boards of directors of twenty-three institutions, including an investment firm, two banks, an insurance company, and four universities.

In 1936 Ben Taub donated thirty-five acres to establish the University of Houston. In 1943 he was instrumental in encouraging Baylor College of Medicine to move to the Texas Medical Center in Houston. As chairman of the board of Jefferson Davis Hospital, he and Michael E. DeBakey made Jefferson Davis Hospital a teaching facility for Baylor College of Medicine, a relationship that continued after the creation of the Harris County Hospital District.

Taub never married and spent his time visiting patients in the county hospital. For years he helped run the DePelchin Faith Home for homeless children. He worked with the Pauline Sterne Wolf Foundation. He was a director of the Texas Medical Center, headed the United Way, gave out scholarships, and sponsored visiting medical professors. He served as chairman of the Jefferson Davis Hospital from 1935 to 1964. When Houston's new charity hospital opened in 1963 the hospital board, in recognition of his service, named it Ben Taub General Hospital. It became one of the nation's major trauma centers. Ben Taub died at age ninety-two on September 9, 1982. In 1986 Baylor College of Medicine opened the ten-story Ben Taub Research Center.