WWHA Review of According to Kate

Posted on by Chris Enss

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According to Kate:

The Legendary Life and Times of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

 

 

As the reader of the journal knows, Mary Katherine Harony, a.k.a. Big Nose Kate, was the paramour of Doc Holliday. She figures in all the literature about Tombstone and the Earps. In the early books, especially, she lends herself to caricature. She is the perfect dancehall girl who is mostly known for going on what is frequently termed, “a monumental drunk,” and implicating Doc in an attempted stage robbery and murder. In short, she is a colorful subordinate character in the Tombstone saga. Author Chris Enss brings her to center stage in this first-book length biography.

Ms. Enss utilized a wide range of sources but primarily used Kate’s own recollections to put together his narrative. These include the Bork and Mazzanovich interviews as well as Kate’s handwritten notes compiled between 1935 and 1939. I was previously unaware of the last. Ms. Enss relates the story as Kate remembered it, inaccuracies, and all. The author rightly does not appoint herself as a corrector of historical errors. After all, what is interesting is Kate’s take on her past.

Devotees of the Tombstone story should find much in this book to interest them. Few pages pass without a new twist on an old story. For instance, to pluck on from the canon, when Doc saves Wyatt’s life in Dodge City, the leader of the rowdy cowboys is James Kenedy, the later killer of Dora Hand. Also, a new suspect in the killing of Johnny Ringo is brought forth. It is certainly one I have never heard before.

Needless to say, when one encounters nuggets of this variety an immediate flip-through to the endnotes follow. The notes in this book are specific and you will learn the source. You might quibble with the source, but it will be there. I learned from the notes that an Indiana newspaper, The Fort Wayne Sentinel, retold the story of Doc’s evisceration of Ed Bailey and Kate’s subsequent rescue of Holliday. This article appeared in November of 1896, so they probably got it from the San Francisco Examiner article of August 1896 by Wyatt Earp. It was interesting to see the story had a wider circulation that I previously thought. Incidentally, Kate ridiculed this legend.

This book contains many photographs. The ones of the principal characters are all familiar ones. There are some good pictures of the towns Kate and Doc lighted in as well as a map of Tombstone. The book reads well. Many times, I picked it up planning to read only ten pages but kept going. There have been many individual tales of outlaws, cowboys, and gamblers. Here now is one of the dancehall girl, and a famous one at that.

Garth Gould, Wild West History Association

 

 

The Widowed Ones – 2023 Spur Finalist

Posted on by Chris Enss

TUCSON, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES, March 4, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Pulitzer Prize finalist Megan Kate Nelson and Emmy Award-winning Walter Hill are among the 2023 Spur Award winners, Western Writers of America announced Saturday.

Among the finalists in the category of Historical Nonfiction was The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian with Chris Kortlander (TwoDot).

 

The Road to Tombstone

Posted on by Chris Enss

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

 

Spent some time in Tombstone last week. I went to high school close by in Sierra Vista, so it was like going home again. The rich history of the area didn’t mean much to me when I was a teenager. I never considered the legendary Western figures that traveled the dusty backroads leading in and out of Tombstone. The only significance those roads had for me then was that they were great places to park and make out. I also thought Sean Penn was a city in China. I was young and obviously not very bright.
When I visit Tombstone now, I can’t help but think about Kate Elder and her time there with Doc Holliday. I’m grateful to have been able to write her biography and thankful the title has been well-received.
Thomas J.
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great read by Chris Enss
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2023
Verified Purchase
It’s hard in my mind to go wrong with any books written by Chris Enss. She has established herself as one of the great historians of old west history. Another aspect of her that I enjoy is she does not always attack the normal topics and characters that have tended to receive and captivate everyone’s attention but also dives into the more side characters such as Kate. Doc and the Earps punched their tickets to eternal western history fame but others like Kate were just as much a part of that history.
There are a lot of unknowns when it came to Kate but Chris did a great job digging up as much as she could find to bring her full story to life and show that while Doc was a big part of that, there was more to her story.
I highly recommend this to anyone who is a student of the old west.