Doc and Kate had rented a room at Fly’s boarding house. On October 26, 1881, a man with a rifle (later identified as Ike Clanton) entered the house looking for Doc. Mrs. Fly turned him away.
At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Kate heard gunfire outside. (It is doubtful that she actually saw the gunfight.) After the fight Doc, slightly wounded, entered the house and went into their room, where he sat on the bed and wept. Kate later said, “It was awful! Just awful!”
Big Nose Kate was born Mary Katherine Haroney (or Harony) on November 7, 1850, in Pest, Hungary, to Dr. Michael and Katharina Haroney.
In 1860 the family emigrated to the U.S. Supposedly Michael was offered a position as the personal physician to Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Whether he ever held the position or not, the family settled in Iowa in 1862.
Big Nose Kate at 17 (left)
After both parents died in 1863, the well educated Mary Katherine (she spoke several languages) and her siblings went to live with their older married sister.
In 1866 Kate ran away. She stowed away on a steamboat headed for St. Louis. She was discovered and the captain, a man named Fisher, took pity on Kate and took her under his protection.
According to Kate, she married a dentist, Silas Melvin, in St. Louis in 1869. They had a son and both father and son died of yellow fever.
There are, however, no records that support any of this. According to census records, there was a man named Silas Melvin in St. Louis at that time, but he was married to a woman named Mary Bust and worked in an asylum. Kate met Doc in the 1870′s and may have confused her facts.
By the mid 1870′s Kate was in Dodge City and going by the name of Kate Elder. Kate was allegedly fined for working as a “sporting woman” in a house run by the wife of James Earp. Whether Kate actually was a prostitute depends upon whom you talk to – some say “yes”, some say “no”.
In 1876 she moved to Ft. Griffin, Texas, where she met Doc at John Shanssey’s Saloon, where Doc was dealing cards. By this time she was known as Big Nose Kate.
At one point Doc was arrested for slashing a man named Ed Bailey with a knife during a poker game. The law kept Doc in a hotel, as there was no jail. To prevent local vigilantes from getting to Doc, Kate set fire to a shed as a distraction and then entered the hotel. She pointed a pistol at the deputy guarding Doc in order to free him. Later in life, Kate denied that this ever happened.
Doc and Kate went to Trinidad, Colorado, and to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where Doc worked as a barkeeper.
The pair met up with the Earps on their way to Arizona Territory. Doc and Kate stayed in Prescott, while the Earps went on to Tombstone.
Doc and Kate then split. Doc went to Tombstone. Kate went to Globe, where she ran a miner’s boarding house.
Kate visited Doc in Tombstone in July, 1881, and had a drunken fight with him. Doc was suspected of robbing a stage, so the local sheriff, Johnny Behan, offered Kate more whiskey in exchange for testimony against Doc. Doc was arrested, but Kate later recanted. Doc was released and Kate went back to Globe.
In October, 1881, Kate was with Doc at a fiesta in Tucson, when Morgan Earp rode in to warn Doc of possible trouble. Doc wanted Kate to stay in Tucson, but she refused, and went to Tombstone with him.
After the OK Corral fight, she visited Doc a few times before he left Tombstone in 1882.
After Doc’s death she married a blacksmith named George Cummings in Aspen, Colorado, on March 2, 1890 (or possibly 1888). They moved to Bisbee, where she ran a bakery. They later moved to Wilcox. Cummings was an abusive alcoholic, and they eventually separated. (Cummings committed suicide in 1915.)
In 1900 Kate moved to Cochise and worked at the Cochise Hotel.
In 1910 Kate moved into the Dos Cabezas, Arizona, homestead of miner John Howard. When Howard died in 1930, Kate was the executrix of his will.
In 1931 Kate applied for admission to the Arizona Pioneers’ Home in Prescott. The Home was established for ailing miners and destitute pioneers. Kate was neither. Also residents had to be U.S. born. Kate wasn’t. All of the residents were also male. Strike three for Kate. But with some help from an old friend, Gov. George Hunt, she got in.
Kate , one of the last links to Holliday, the Earps, and the OK Corral, died November 2, 1940. Her death certificate disputes her parents’ names and her place of birth. She may have given some false information in order to get into the Home.
Kate was buried on November 6, 1940, in the Arizona Pioneers’ Home Cemetery.
