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Most people who know Mary Katherine Horony ( sometimes Haroney ) roll in the hay her as Big Nose Kate , the on - again , off - again fan of Wild West legend Doc Holliday . She unremarkably appears , when she appears at all , as a footer in picture show and stories about Holliday and his good admirer Wyatt Earp , the famed lawman and gunfighter . But that famous duo may never have even met if it was n’t for Kate , who was a force to be look with in her own rightfulness .
Not much is known about Mary Katherine ’s former life . Born in Pest , Hungary in 1850 , she was the eldest of Dr. Michael Horony and Katharina Baldizar ’s seven ( or perhaps eight ) kid , and apparently come to the United States on the steamshipBremenin 1860 , before her family found their way to Davenport , Iowa . Recently , a caption has go forth that Kate ’s Padre was the physician for Mexican Emperor Maximilian and that the family had move to Mexico City before take flight in the backwash of Maximilian ’s execution , but this is most probable a myth [ PDF ] . The Horony family appears to have been well - found in America before Maximilian even set foot in Mexico .
Kate was 15 when her parents died and she and her siblings were split up among surrogate home . Kate went to survive with a less - than - idealistic guardian , who reportedly endeavor to rape her . That ’s when the first flashgun of Big Nose Kate , the main woman who made her own way in life , appear . Rather than stay with her guardian , Kate fled , stowing aside aboard a riverboat on the Mississippi and arriving to a newfangled life in St. Louis as Kate Fisher . ( By some accounts , she make her guardian a good whackwith an ax handle first . )
Kate subsequently told Dr. Albert William Bork , a Southern Illinois University historian , that she wed a dentist name Silas Melvin and had a youngster in St. Louis not long after her outflow . But she allege thatboth husband and kid died of a fever soon after in Atlanta , and endeavour to identify Silas Melvin ’s personal identity have systematically add up up flat .
Kate around historic period 17 alongside her sister . Image credit rating : Wikimedia// Public Domain
Kate Elder , the name she was using by then , finally found work as a prostitute in a Wichita , Kansas dance hall and " sporting house ” owned by Bessie Earp , Wyatt Earp ’s baby - in - law . It was here that she probably met Wyatt Earp . According to research worker Glenn Boyer , Kate was a best-loved lover of Earp’sfor a while , but he cast her off before she touch Holliday .
She then move on to other dance vestibule and sedan , including one in Fort Griffin , Texas , where in 1876 she met John Henry “ Doc ” Holliday , the man who would become the love of her life . " Big Nose " Kate trance him with her sorry beneficial looks , intelligence , and fiery irritation , and she , in act , was smitten with him . Kate told Bork , the historian , that the two were married that year at Holliday ’s house in Georgia , though Bork and Boyer think the marriage was a uncouth - law one , and never made official .
Kate also introduced Holliday to Earp , a move she regret in her late biography , according to Boyer and historian Jan MacKell . " The Earps had such a power I could not get Doc aside from them , " Kate said . And despite her relationship with Holliday — and his disapproval — Kate continued to work as a tart , sometimes for Bessie Earp ( the married woman of Wyatt ’s brother James ) .
Kate ’s association with the famed sometimes - lawmen , sometimes - outlaws give her a number of colorful stories . For deterrent example , in Texas , Holliday plainly got into a fight after a card game and a little too much to drink one night . The fight twist deadly , and Holliday ended up being arrested and admit in a nearby hotel . That ’s when Kateset the hotel on fire and helped Holliday make his escapism . Kate also allow in to Boyer that when she and Doc were in Las Vegas , New Mexico , she bear up the local lawmen with a six - shooter — in her nightgown .
When Holliday and the Earp buddy moved to Tombstone , Arizona , Kate and Doc temporarily separate and she moved to Globe , a piddling over 180 miles away , where she eventually buy a hotel .
However , Kate and Holliday uphold to publish , and in 1881 , he convinced her to move to Tombstone . She had a front - dustup seat for the Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 . The 30 - second triggerman battle , which actually took place down the street from the paddock it was constitute after , was theculmination of month of tensionbetween a radical of cowhand live for murder and cattle rustling and the Earps , who served as the town ’s lawmen . The brothers made Holliday a temporary policeman for the conflict , which ended with three of the cowboys utter ( the Earps and Holliday were wounded ) .
Kate and Doc ’s relationship was tempestuous and often violent . According to witnesses , she once endeavor to snap him in his sleep , can bullets into the mattress , only for him to wake , grab the ordnance from her hands and make her over the head with it . Yet the two were enjoin to be " like newlyweds " the next day . In another incident , she cause him briefly arrested on false execution charges . But she always follow back , eventually .
However , after the Gunfight at the OK Corral , Holliday , worry for her safety , told Kate to return to Globe . ( The Earp wives were ship out for a prison term as well . ) They did n’t see each other for several years , during which time Kate track down her hotel and traveled around Arizona .
Things shift in 1887 , when she try that Holliday was in the final stages of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs , Colorado . Kate reportedlywent to stay at the nearby ranchof her sidekick Alexander Haroney , so she could visit Holliday during his terminal Day .
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Throughout their relationship , Kate was her own charwoman , pass up to give up her work or her independence . But Doc ’s death left her a change adult female . She gave up life history as Big Nose Kate and became Mary , a mine cook .
She married a man list George Cummings in 1888 . Her biographer trust it was a " repast slate marriage ceremony " and by 1898 , Kate had left him . " Cummings was a drinker,“she later toldGov . George Hunt .
She spent the next three 10 as thehousekeeper of miner John J. Howard , who named her as his heritor . When he passed away , however , she was 80 years old , and he was n’t able to leave her much . She applied to Hunt to give her space in the Arizona Pioneers Home in Prescott , which had just begun to admit women .
While her app give only sparse details of her background , other residents of the dwelling house agnise Mary K. Cummings as Big Nose Kate , the wild Hungarian beauty who had rule over the dance Hall and saloons of the Wild West .
It was at the Pioneers Home where she in the end had the probability to share her side of the narration with Dr. Bork , who described heras " a spare , well - spoken footling old lady and , like a mess of them , seeking respectability in onetime long time . " Bork and Boyer note that as she recounted her tarradiddle , she add up or changed details for propriety ’s sake — such as call back her vulgar - law union to Holliday as an official one , and listing her birthplace as Iowa because she never actually became a U.S. citizen .
She died November 2 , 1940 , days before her ninetieth natal day .
" Kate did n’t have it easy , " Boyer wrote in 1979 . " Perhaps someone will drop a corsage on the blot [ where she ’s bury ] occasionally . I go for so . "
