Big Nose Kate and friends - Tucson, AZ
Tucson, AZ
Breakfast by the pool was perfect. Kate had been brave and had an early swim, which she pronounced cold. Many people were planning to spend the day around the pool and not go anywhere... which looked very tempting, but there was also a suggestion that a trip to Tombstone would be good.
I have been very lax and not done my homework on this trip at all, so the name Tombstone meant nothing to me at all, although I had heard of the gunfight at the OK Corral, not that I could tell you anything about it.
The road to Tombstone took us past thousands of parked mothballed planes, which I think we are due to visit tomorrow... but it was a weird feeling driving past them all. Row upon row of them.
Through Benson and on towards St David and Tombstone, it was an easy drive, but with not a lot to see. My eyes felt really weird and incredibly sensitive to the light, even though I had sunglasses on. They were a bit watery and I just wanted to close them.
Tombstone!
Well... this was just like all those old western films: the wide straight Main Street with rails to tie your horse up to, the 'sidewalks' a slightly raised wooden decking, with the signs for the shops and saloons etc. all swinging from the wooden covered walkway roof.
Big Nose Kate was a feature here.
A Western Folk Figure, Mary Katherine Horony Cummings (sometimes known as Kate Schmidt... yes really) is best remembered as "Big Nose Kate," the girlfriend and common law wife of fabled gunfighter and old Wild West icon, Doc Holliday.
Born in Pest, Hungary, she was the eldest daughter of a wealthy physician named Dr. Michael Horony. She and her siblings were educated as aristocrat's children. Each of Doctor Horony's children were literate, and Mary Katherine spoke several languages.
In 1862, her family moved to Davenport, Iowa. After the death of both of her parents in 1865, Kate and her siblings were placed under the gaurdianship of Otto Schmidt, who triend to rape her. She attacked him with an axe, and being unsure whether or not she had killed him, she ran away and began to travel through several cow towns as a dance hall girl and eventually a prostitute.
While working for Bessie Earp, wife of Wyatt Earp's brother, James, Kate met and began traveling with Holliday in 1875. The two separated four years later in 1879, with Holliday joining the Earps in Tombstone with Kate where she opened a brothel and became known as Big Nose Kate.
Kate reunited with Holliday on many occasions and was interviewed for her witnessing the OK Corral shootout. Kate parted ways with Holliday and headed for Colorado to reunite with her other family members in the late 1880's, but she is said to have been with Holliday when he died.
Kate married George Cummings in 1890, returned to Arizona, then left Cummings in 1900 and began to work in Cochise, Arizona and finally in Dos Cabezas, Arizona. In 1930, Kate applied for the Arizona Pioneer Home in Prescott after her employer, John Jessie Howard, died.
Kate died in 1940 at the age of about 90, as one of the first women in Arizona to be admitted to the Pioneer Home.
She is buried in Prescott, Arizona, in the Pioneer Cemetery under a very modest stone.
There is a saloon in Tombstone named after her, so my Big Nose Kate Schmidt and I went in for a drink. It was a great place with so much to look at! The waitresses had their bosoms heaved so high they were just under their ears, and had the obligatory feathers in their hair... with layers of red and black frills around their sturdy bodies, with ancient Timberland boots under it all which set off the combo nicely.
How weird that I am with a Kate Schmidt and that Big Nose Kate is also sometimes referred to as Kate Schmidt!
My Little Nose Kate and I watched the gunfight at the OK Corral, which was so dire it was fun; followed by the film outlining the history of Tombstone narrated by Vincent Price.
A stroll up and down the Main Street was good, after which we managed to pick up the local Marshall, who was very friendly and he explained that he was better off than the old law officers, as he carried both a gun (which he proudly showed us) AND a mobile, and the old officers were allowed to carry a gun, but not a mobile phone!
On the way out of town, we stopped at the old graveyard, Boothill, where there were some really interesting graves. Many unknowns, but also many who had been killed, either by Indians or in fights.
We came to the conclusion that life in Tombstone must have been hard, particularly for the women.
Back at the hotel, we had dinner by the pool, accompanied by a great Blues band.
Some people got up and danced, at which I was struck by one of those searing grief surges, as I remembered the times that Nick and I had danced together.
Sometimes the missing just gets too much.