Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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MARY CUMMINGS



She is better known as Big Nose Kate Elder, the stormy companion of several years to Doc Holliday, the well-known tinhorn gambler and drunkard. Mary was born in Pest, Hungary on Nov 7, 1850 to Dr Michael Horony and his wife Katarina. Dr Horony was the personal physician to the Hapsburg family in Austria, and attended to the health of Maximilian, who later became Emperor of Mexico. The Horony’s came to America in 1860 and settled in Davenport, IA where the good doctor and his wife both died in 1865. Mary and her sister were kicked around as orphan girls from one place to next until Mary ran away. She went to St Louis as a domestic servant, but that didn’t suit her much. By 1874 she had become a sporting girl with Bessie Earp in Dodge City. She was known there as Kate Elder. She took up with Doc Holliday and followed him to Fort Griffin, TX, Trinidad, CO, and Las Vegas, NM. She didn’t like Wyatt Earp though, and when Doc decided to join Wyatt in Tombstone, she decided to open her own house in Globe. After Doc died in Glenwood Springs she married a blacksmith in Aspen named George Cummings on March 2, 1890. They moved to Bisbee, and on to Willcox and separated in 1900 because George was an even worse drunkard than Doc. Mary went to work for John and Lulu Rath, owners of the Cochise Hotel. By 1910 she had married John Howard, a miner homesteading in Dos Cabezas. Howard died in 1930 and Mary settled his estate, but was treated poorly by the Howard family and dropped the name. In her eighties she petitioned the Governor of Arizona for residence at the Pioneer Settlers Home in Prescott. She died there on Nov 2, 1940 five days shy of being 90 years old. She is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery there as Mary K. Cummings. The photo shows the Cochise Hotel where she spent a few good years as a cook and baker.

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Photos

MARY CUMMINGS
From exit 331 on I-10 go south on Hwy 191 about 4.25 miles to Cochise Stronghold Rd. It is the first right turn after the railroad tracks. Go southwest along the railroad tracks to the little town of Cochise.