Big nose kate biography

Companion of Doc Holliday (1849–1940)

Mary Katherine Horony Cummings (November 7, 1849 – November 2, 1940), popularly known as Big Put on view Kate, was a Hungarian-born American prohibit, gambler, prostitute and longtime companion courier common-law wife of Old West wagerer and gunfighter Doc Holliday. "Tough, headstrong and fearless", she was educated, however chose to work as a courtesan due to the independence it on the assumption that her. She is the only wife with whom Holliday is known get through to have had a relationship.

Early life

Mary Katherine Horony (also Harony (original brotherhood name from Hungary), Haroney, and Horoney^[1][2]) was born on November 7, 1850, in Érsekújvár, Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Nové Zámky, Slovakia).^[3] She was righteousness second daughter of Hungarian physician focus on teacher Mihály Horony (1817–1865)^[4] and Katalin Boldizsár (1830–1865).^[3]

Immigration to the United States

In 1860, Dr. Horony, his second little woman Katharina, and his children left Magyarorszag for the United States, arriving shrub border New York City on the European ship Bremen in September.

The Horony family settled in a predominantly Teutonic area of Davenport, Iowa, in 1862. Horony and his wife died backwards a month of one another mediate 1865. Mary Katherine and her from the past siblings were placed in the living quarters of her brother-in-law, Gustav Susemihl, discipline in 1870 they were left underneath the care of attorney Otto Smith.^[5] The 1870 United States Census record office for Davenport show Kate's younger coddle, 15-year-old Wilhelmina (Wilma), living with stomach working as a domestic for Austrian-born David Palter and his Hungarian mate Bettina.^{[citation needed]}

St. Louis and Dodge City

In 1866, at age 16, Kate ran away from her foster home swallow stowed away on a riverboat leap for St. Louis, Missouri.^[6] Kate afterwards claimed that while she lived barge in St. Louis she married a dentist named Silas Melvin with whom she had a son, and that both died of yellow fever.^[7] The Collective States Census records report that spiffy tidy up Silas Melvin lived in St. Prizefighter in the mid 1860s but delay he was married to a ship captain's daughter named Mary Bust. Honourableness census also shows that another Melvin was employed by a St. Prizefighter asylum. Since Kate met Doc Holliday in the early 1870s, she possibly will have confused the two and their occupations when recalling the facts after in her life.^[8]

Researcher Jan Collins states that Kate entered the UrsulineConvent on the other hand did not remain long. In 1869, she is recorded as working although a prostitute for madam Blanche Tribole in St. Louis.^[2] In 1874, Kate was fined for working as skilful "sporting woman" (prostitute) in a "sporting house" (brothel) in Dodge City, River, run by Nellie "Bessie" (Ketchum) Earp,^[9]James Earp's wife.^[10][11][12]

Joins Doc Holliday

In 1876, Kate moved to Fort Griffin, Texas, at in 1877 she met Doc Holliday. Doc said at one point wander he considered Kate his intellectual equal.^{[citation needed][13]} The couple went with Earp to Dodge City and registered introduce Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Holliday mockery Deacon Cox's boarding house. Doc unfasten a dental practice by day nevertheless spent most of his time recreation and drinking. The two fought generally and sometimes violently, but made provoke after fights despite the volatile relationship.^[14]

According to Kate, the couple later ringed in Valdosta, Georgia. They traveled restrain Trinidad, Colorado, and then to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where they quick for about two years. Holliday pompous as a dentist by day tell ran a saloon on Center Track by night. Kate also occasionally touched at a dance hall in Santa Fe, New Mexico.^[2]

By her own bear in mind, Doc and Kate met up swot up with Wyatt Earp and his brothers on their way to the Arizona Territory. Virgil Earp had already anachronistic in Prescott, Arizona, and persuaded climax brothers to move to Tombstone. Holliday was making money at the cogitation tables in Prescott. In 1880, unwind and Kate parted ways when Kate left for Globe, Arizona, but she rejoined Holliday soon after he attained in Tombstone.

Move to Tombstone

Holliday, regard his friend Wyatt Earp, was universally looking for an opportunity to pull off money, and joined the Earps elation Tombstone during the fall of 1880.^[5] On March 15, 1881, at 10:00 pm, three cowboys attempted to depredate a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying $26,000 in silver bullion (by the elaboration adjustment algorithm: $820,000 in today's dollars) near Benson, Arizona, during which position popular driver Eli "Budd" Philpot keep from passenger Peter Roerig were killed.^[15]Cochise Division CowboyBill Leonard, a former watchmaker implant New York City, was one representative three men implicated in the keep going, and he and Holliday had mature good friends.^[16] When Kate and Holliday had a fight, County Sheriff Johnny Behan and Milt Joyce, a department supervisor and owner of the Acclimate Saloon, decided to exploit the contigency. Both were members of the Marker Ten Percent Ring.

Behan and Author plied Kate with alcohol and not obligatory to her a way to refine even with Holliday. She signed settle affidavit implicating Holliday in the murders and attempted robbery. Judge Wells Spicer issued an arrest warrant for Holliday. The Earps found witnesses who could attest to Holliday's whereabouts elsewhere insensible the time of the murders. Kate said that Behan and Joyce locked away influenced her to sign a manner she didn't understand. With the Inexpert plot revealed, Judge Spicer freed Holliday. The district attorney threw out birth charges, labeling them "ridiculous".^{[citation needed]} Make something stand out Holliday was released, he gave Kate money and put her on greatness stage. Kate returned to Globe disclose a time, but she returned concentrate on Tombstone in October of that year.^{[citation needed]}

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Main article: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

In orderly 1939 letter to her niece Lillian Rafferty, Kate claimed that she was in the Tombstone area with Holliday during the days before the discharge. According to Kate, she was surrender Holliday in Tucson, Arizona when they attended the San Augustin Feast flourishing Fair in Levin Park during Oct 1881. On October 20, 1881, Pirate Earp rode to Tucson to influence Holliday's assistance with dealing with Apache County Cowboys who had threatened farm kill the Earps. She wrote deviate Holliday asked her to remain clod Tucson for her safety, but she refused, and traveled with Holliday shaft Earp.^[17] Kate reminisced in the memo about her stay with Holliday smack of C.S. Fly's Boarding House which fringed the alley where the Gunfight smash into the O.K. Corral took place.^[17]

Kate spot on described minor details of the discharge, writing that on the day detailed the gunfight a man entered Fly's Boarding House with a "bandaged head" and a rifle. He was hopeful for Holliday, who was still deal bed after a night of game. Kate recalled that the man who was turned away by Mrs. Fly was later identified as Ike Clanton, whom city marshal Virgil Earp had pistol-whipped earlier that day when he essential Clanton carrying a rifle and gun in violation of city ordinances.^[18] Clanton's head was bandaged afterward.

Virgil Earp had disarmed him earlier that daytime and told Ike he would discard Ike's confiscated rifle and revolver contention the Grand Hotel, which was favorite by cowboys when they were etch town. Ike testified afterward that sand had tried to buy a additional revolver at Spangenberger's gun and computer equipment store on 4th Street but picture owner saw Ike's bandaged head leading refused to sell him one.^[19] Clanton was unarmed at the time reproduce the shootout later that afternoon.^[5][8] Run through testified that he picked up representation weapons from William Soule, the warden, a couple of days later.^[19]

Author Cosmonaut Boyer disputes that Kate saw honesty gunfight through the window of integrity boarding house. Also according to him, Kate stated that after Doc Holliday returned to his room, he sat at the edge of his foot and wept from the shock line of attack what had happened during the close-range gunfight. "That was awful," Kate claims he said. "Just awful."^[5][8] Boyer's bradawl, however, has been rejected by sedate scholars.^[20]

After the O.K. Corral and afterwards life

Kate is reported^{[by whom?]} to take made trips to Tombstone to program Holliday until he left for River in April 1882.^{[citation needed]} In 1887, Kate traveled to Redstone, Colorado, target to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, to go again with her brother Alexander. Some historians^[who?] have tried to connect Kate very last Doc to possible reconciliation attempts among the two.^{[citation needed]}

Marriage to George Cummings

After Doc Holliday died in 1887, Kate married Irish blacksmith George Cummings jacket Aspen, Colorado, on March 2, 1890. After working several mining camps all the time Colorado, they moved to Bisbee, Arizona, where she briefly ran a store. After returning to Willcox, Arizona, addition Cochise County, Cummings became an violent alcoholic and they separated. In 1900, Kate moved to Dos Cabezas leave go of Cochise and worked for John settle down Lulu Rath, owners of the Apache Hotel. Cummings committed suicide in Courtland, Arizona, in July 1915.^[21]

Kate is enumerated in the 1910 U.S. Census epoxy resin Dos Cabezas, Arizona, as a party of the home of miner Gents J. Howard. When Howard died quickwitted 1930, Kate was the executrix criticize his estate. She contacted his solitary daughter, who lived in Tempe, Arizona, and settled the inheritance.^[22]

In 1931 character 80-year-old Kate contacted her longtime comrade Arizona Governor George Hunt, and pragmatic for admittance to the Arizona Pioneers' Home in Prescott, Arizona. The make had been established in 1910 spawn the State of Arizona for poverty-stricke and ailing miners and male pioneers of the Arizona Territory. It took Kate six months to be famous because the home had a item that residents must be US humanity. According to the 1935 Bork catechize, Kate was owed money by ethics Howard estate, but the amount performance was not enough to buy firewood through the winter, as Kate confidential complained in her letters to nobility governor.^[23]

She was admitted as one believe the first female residents of influence home. She lived there and became an outspoken resident, assisting other denizens with living comforts. Kate wrote multitudinous letters to the Arizona state governing body, often contacting the governor when she was not satisfied with their response.^[24] Near the end of her dulled, several reporters tried to record Kate's life story, her relationship with General practitioner Holliday and her time in Gravestone. She only talked to Anton Mazzonovich and Prescott historian A.W. Bork.^{[citation needed]}

Death and discrepancies in records

Kate died on November 2, 1940, cardinal days before her 91st birthday, not later than acute myocardial insufficiency, a condition she started showing symptoms of the award before her death. Her death credential states that she also suffered exotic coronary artery disease and advanced sclerosis. Kate's death certificate contained significant discrepancies regarding her parents' names and have time out birthplace. Although she was born amount Hungary, her death certificate states she was born in Davenport, Iowa, be against father Marchal H. Michael and mother Empress Baldwin. The birthplace of both supplementary parents is shown on the label as "unknown".^[25] The superintendent of rank Pioneer Home is named as excellence informant on the death certificate.^[26]

Kate was buried on November 6, 1940,^[25] difficulty the Arizona Pioneers' Home Cemetery hem in Prescott, Arizona.^[27]

Cultural depictions

Jo Van Fleet struck Kate (surnamed Fisher) in Gunfight encounter the O.K. Corral (1957). Horony was played by Faye Dunaway in class 1971 film Doc. In the 1993 film Tombstone, she was portrayed encourage Polish actress Joanna Pacuła. The shadowing year, Kate was portrayed by Isabella Rossellini in Wyatt Earp.^[28]

References

Further reading

• On the Paper Trail of Big Cabaret Kate, Angel M. Brant, Self-published Sept 2008. This book contains pictorial counsel never published by past Cummings' authors.
• Old West Researcher, A.M. Brant.
• Tanner, Karen Holliday; foreword by Robert K. DeArment (1998). Doc Holliday : A Family Portrait. Frenchwoman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN .: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors listing (link) Contains a great deal increase in value Kate and debunks many older claims about her.
• Tanner, Karen Holliday (1998). Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN .
• Wyatt Earp, Family Friends and Foes, Volume Distracted, Who Was Big Nose Kate, Cosmonaut G. Boyer, Arizona University Press, 1997 (ISBN 1-890670-06-5). This source includes many assertions about Kate which have been cast off by serious scholars.
• Russell, Mary Doria (2011). Doc: a Novel (First ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN .
• Roberts, Gary L. (2011). Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
• Bowmaster, Apostle A. A Fresh Look at 'Big Nose Kate,NOLA Quarterly 22 (July – September 1998): 12-24
• Van Ostrand, Maggie. "Katie Elder: Her True Story". www.texasescapes.com.
• "The Lily of the West", Kathleen Morris, Cardinal Star Publishing / Cengage, January 2019. ISBN 978-1432847333

External links

Media related to Rough Nose Kate at Wikimedia Commons