Davenport
Mary Katherine Horony, common-law wife of Doc Holliday, was born in Hungary, but emigrated with her family to the U.S. in 1860. The family settled in Davenport, Iowa, when Kate was about 12 years old. Orphaned at 15, she ran away at 16 to St. Louis, where it is reported she married and was widowed. By 1869, she was arrested in Dodge City, Kansas, for working in a sporting house run by the woman who would later marry Wyatt Earp’s older brother James.
In 1877, Kate (also known as Big Nose Kate Elder, Kate Fisher, and Mary Summers), was living in Texas, where she met Doc Holliday, and it was she who introduced Holiday to Wyatt Earp and his brothers. |