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

Chris Enss is a New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about women of the Old West for more than twenty years. She has penned more than forty published books on the subject. Her book entitled Entertaining Ladies: Actresses, Singers, and Dancers in the Old West was a Spur Award finalist in 2017. Ensss book Mochis War: The Tragedy of the Sand Creek Massacre received the Will Rogers Medallion Award for best nonfiction Western for 2015. Her book entitled Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Matchmaking on the Western Frontier won the Elmer Kelton Award for Best Nonfiction book of 2013. Ensss book Sam Sixkiller: Frontier Cherokee Lawman was named Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History by the Oklahoma Historical Society. She received the Spirit of the West Alive award, cosponsored by the Wild West Gazette, celebrating her efforts to keep the spirit of the Old West alive for future generations, and the Citizen of the Year Award from the Nevada County Historical Society for preserving the history of the Gold Country and the West.

A TWODOT BOOK

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KATE

WRITING THIS BOOK HAS BEEN A LESSON IN UNINTERRUPTED ANGUISH. Kate Elder was a controversial character, quite disliked by one of the most celebrated figures in the Old West. The mere idea that I was going to tackle a nonfiction book about the troubled, soiled dove brought on a barrage of criticism from historians and Earp-family enthusiasts. The following are to blame for my continuing on with the project despite the threats made against writing the book.

Scott Dyke: award-winning journalist and keeper of Kates personal writings and mementos.

Cathy Reeves: former director of the Dodge City Library and expert on Dodge City history.

Stuart Rosebrook: senior editor at True West Magazine and the one who continually reminded me that Kate had a head for business.

Erin Turner: editorial director at TwoDot Books, who agreed to let me pursue Kates story and kept the goal of a completed book looming large long past the deadline.

KATE ELDER WAS A WORKING GIRL. THROUGHOUT MOST OF HER YOUNG life, she was employed as a soiled dovea woman of ill fame, a sporting gal, a prostitute. She wasnt alone in that profession; hundreds of women entered the trade in the 1800s. Some felt they had no other option but to become a lady of the evening, and others joined the industry of the fallen, believing they could make a fortune capitalizing on the vices of intrepid cowboys and pioneers.

It was Kates relationship with John Henry (Doc) Holliday that brought her notoriety and lifted her out of the role as mere courtesan to that of common-law wife to the well-known gambler, gunfighter, and dentist.

Kates story of her life on the frontier as a soiled dove and her time with one of the Wests most recognizable characters has value. She was in her eighties when she dared to recall all that had transpired since leaving Hungary where she was born to the events leading up to the historic gunfight at the O.K. Corral. There are those who insist that because of her age her recollections are faulty and that little of anything she said occurred the way she reported it. I maintain it would be wrong not to share all the eighty-four-year-old Kate had to tell about an adventurous time in history merely because she was an octogenarian. Some of us at fifty-seven cant remember what day it is even though weve checked the calendar upwards of twenty times since starting work. Yet I can vividly recall that during seventh grade music class Pam Green loudly pointed out that I was growing a mustache. (Its important to note here that Im a woman, so this was extremely detrimental to my self-esteem at the time.)

According to Kate is a biography about the life and times of Kate Elder. She would have written the book herself if a publisher had been willing to pay her handsomely for her tale. Kate believed her story was worth a great deal. No one besides Kate saw it that way. Throughout the book Ive used all the information contained in Kates journals, personal letters, and interviews to tell of her life from her childhood in Hungary to her waning years at a retirement home in Arizona. Where some of her details were ambiguous, I used newspapers and historical documents to corroborate her story.

This book is entitled According to Kate because its exactly what Kate said happened. I didnt debate her recollections of events in the text because it would have interrupted the flow of her thoughts and taken readers out of the moment. Occasionally, I added an endnote to clarify what she meant or to shed light on the circumstances, but I didnt dis-mantle her telling of what she saw or heard. That subject has been covered by many writers before this book was compiled and no doubt will be the subject of many articles to come.

Kate wrote that she loved Doc. She wanted a life with him. According to Kate, the couple seemed to be on their way to settling down in Las Vegas, New Mexico, when the Earps arrived and disrupted the plans. Kate was annoyed by the intrusion and Wyatt Earps attempts to persuade Doc to leave Las Vegas and travel with them to Arizona. Understandably, most women would be irritated if influential friends tried to coax their significant other away from their home and the life the pair had created. Wyatt viewed Kates desire to keep Doc with her in New Mexico as controlling. He was critical of her need to know Docs plans and saddled her with a name she would never be able to shake. Because of this, Kate held a grudge against Wyatt the rest of her life.

I spent more than two years researching Kate Elders story. In my attempt to find everything Kate had ever written, I sifted through numerous archives from St. Louis, Missouri, to Bisbee, Arizona, corresponded with her distant relatives, and pored over the letters and journals of people Kate knew from her childhood home in Davenport, Iowa, to Dos Cabezas, Arizona. Award-winning journalist Scott Dyke provided me with the lions share of Kate Elders personal writings. The collection included photographs Kate owned and interviews Kate did with Dr. A. W. Bork as well as all the research Dr. Bork did with controversial author Glenn Boyer. Any thought I had that the bulk of the material in the collection hadnt been seen before was quickly dispelled once I began going through it. There were aspects of Kates life within the collection that had not been made public, but most of what I was given had been shared with other writers. Still, Im grateful to have been exposed to the artifacts of such an independent and driven woman.