THE WIDOWED ONES
BEYOND THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN
Foreword Review Indies Finalist in two categories
2022 INDIES Finalist
Finalist, Biography (Adult Nonfiction)
2022 INDIES Finalist
Finalist, History (Adult Nonfiction)
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
Thought for the day: Dance like nobody’s watching because they are not, they’re all checking their phones. I look forward to seeing some or all of you at the book events noted below.
February 24, 2023
Scottsdale Museum of the West Scottsdale, AZ. 2:30 – 3:30 P.M.
February 26, 2023
Tucson Transportation Museum Tucson, AZ. 3-4 P.M.
February 28, 2023
Sun City Library Oro Valley, AZ. 12:30 P.M.– 2 P.M.
March 1, 2023
Tombstone Book Festival Tombstone, AZ. 10 A.M.– 8 P.M.
March 2, 2023
Sierra Vista Public Library Sierra Vista, AZ. 1 P.M.– 2 P.M.
March 3, 2023
La Posada Green Valley, AZ. 1-2 P.M.
March 4 & 5, 2023
Tucson Festival of Books Tucson, AZ. 9 A.M. – 6 P.M.
The main thoroughfare of Sweetwater, Texas, was so crowded with hunters, trappers, wagons, teams of horses, and soldiers that passing streams of people jostled each other, and some walked shoulder to shoulder. The air was charged with excitement. Rumors that Tom Sherman, Kate Elder, Mollie Brennan, and the other five members of the Seven Jolly Sisters were on their way had caused a mild panic, and lonely men desperate for female companionship had flocked to the burg.
Sweetwater was a trading post along the Jones Plummer Trail. That trail was connected to the major cattle drive town of Dodge City. Sweetwater was a destination for bullwhackers, buffalo skinners, and cowhands. Troops from Fort Elliott, eleven miles from town, enjoyed time at Sweetwater, too. The fort was established [in 1875] to protect the buffalo traders from being raided by Indians.
For Kate, the busy town provided a fresh crush of people to meet and with whom to do business. Soiled doves relished a change of scenery from time to time. They liked the possibility of enticing new patrons in a different location. It also brought renewed business when sporting girls returned to the town where their house of ill repute was located.
The August 24, 1876, edition of the Dodge City Times described the setting where Kate and the other entertainers arrived as a “thriving hamlet overrun with tradesmen.” Fourteen wagon loads of buffalo hides for a general outfitter in Dodge City known as Chas. Rath & Co. lined the sides of the dusty roadways. A report that a band of twenty-one hundred Indians south of Sweetwater had been spotted rattled some of the citizenry, but, as long as the soldiers remained in town, panic was abated.
Tom Sherman and his help erected a canvas tent, set up a makeshift -stage, and the Seven Jolly Sisters went to work. Among the many individuals who spent time with Sherman’s employees was a twenty-three-year-old buffalo hunter and army scout named Bat Masterson. In late 1875, Bat had taken a job as a faro dealer at the Lady Gay Saloon. After Sherman’s outfit arrived, Bat could either be found in the saloon or with Mollie Brennan.
On January 24, 1876, Kate and Mollie concluded their dance routine and set off to explore additional business. They ventured to the Lady Gay for a drink. The two ladies met Bat at the bar, and he bought them a drink. Once their drinks were finished, Bat and Mollie retired to his room. Kate recalled the couple hadn’t been gone long when Sgt. Melvin A. King, one of the men with whom Bat had been playing cards earlier in the evening, charged toward Bat’s room. King was furious with Bat over what he perceived as “underhanded dealings.” With a loaded gun in hand, King pounded on Bat’s room door and waited for an answer. Assuming it was Kate wanting to join the pair for a nightcap, Bat unlocked the door. Sgt. King burst into the room and opened fire. Mollie came between Bat and one of the bullets and was critically wounded. Bat was shot in the pelvis, but he managed to grab his gun and kill King before collapsing.
Despite his best efforts, the local physician could not save Mollie. An army surgeon was called to the scene to remove the bullet from Bat’s lower mid-section and stayed with him until he recovered.
In the winter of 1872, Wendell Phillips, orator, attorney, and the soul of John Brown marching on, delivered a lecture to a large audience of concerned citizens in St. Louis, Missouri, about the social cancer that plagued society. He pounded the lectern he stood behind while addressing the crowd and advised them to take a stand against intemperance, crime, and prostitution. Phillips was appalled that city officials had legalized the profession and were issuing licenses to the owners of houses of ill repute and the bawdy women who worked there. Almond Street, a popular thoroughfare five blocks west of the riverfront, was the location of many of those houses. It was Phillips’ hope that after the residents of St. Louis heard his fiery speech, they would demand the businesses be closed.
“The root of this vice is poverty,” Phillips proclaimed. “It is because the poverty of a certain class makes them the victims of the wealth and leisure of another. Give one hundred men anywhere an honest career and a chance at the grand opportunities of life, and ninety out of the hundred will distain to steal. Give one hundred women a fair chance at the grand opportunities that their brothers have and ninety out of the hundred will disdain to barter virtue for gold.” Mary Katherine Horony, now known as Kate Fisher, was one of those near Almond Street who bartered virtue for gold. Poverty had played a part in her decision to become a sporting woman, but she was satisfied the work possessed possibilities beyond money. Kate was a businesswoman — nothing more, nothing less.
St. Louis had given Kate and other sporting women the opportunity to do their job without fear that law enforcement would interfere. The “social evil ordinance” the city had passed in March 1870 not only required prostitutes to obtain licenses but also mandated business women to submit to medical exams testing for venereal diseases. Civic leaders hoped the controversial ordinance would reduce the spread of disease. Many opposed the idea, arguing that it “encouraged the very vice which all good men and women destined to see suppressed.” Many soiled doves never bothered to register. Kate was one of those women.
The spirited, Hungarian woman must have been able to take care of herself against intoxicated and belligerent clients. Prostitutes sometimes found themselves in the company of men who resented their services. They hated themselves for hiring sporting women and blamed those women for the ills of society. A listing of arrests in daily, St. Louis papers showed how many acts of violence against prostitutes occurred nightly. The August 29, 1872, edition of The Macon Republican contained information about the circumstances surrounding the beating deaths of more than ten, bawdy ladies in the area of Popular Street in St. Louis. “Eleven wretched criminals victimized prostitutes overnight,” The Macon Republican article began. “A man named Burklin shot a sinful woman when crazed with drink and jealousy; another killed a woman with a grubbing hoe; a third tossed the prostitute out a third story window; three were stabbed to death; the seventh prostitute was beaten to death with a soda water bottle; two were strangled; two were hanged by the neck with a rope.”
“Seldom does a book debuting in the Wyatt Earp field elicit anything but yawns. “According to Kate” is the remedy for ennui. Chris Enss is a longtime established writer of all things feminine in the Old West. In her latest masterpiece, she delves into the life of Kate Elder, paramour of legend “Doc” Holliday. The book is captivating, from page one to page last.
Kate, born Mary Harony, had this remarkable life journey that author Enss captures; highs and certainly lows, that any Western movie script would embrace. In fact, many did. `Kate made do on the frontier primarily dealing in prostitution. Kate had the wits and resolve to survive Holliday, Tombstone, and everything else that threatened her existence. She lived to be 90, and “According to Kate” chronicles every step of her back trail.
This book can be relished by the average reader looking for something different and will be an attraction to any Wild West history buff, as it supplies an extended fleshing out of one of the West most notorious figures.
The book belongs on that special shelf that contains first rate biographies of Western icons. It is a winner.”
