By Bradley G. Courtney
On Friday, December 20, 1935, the Prescott Evening Courier published a report entitled, “Unusual Rug Shown In Downtown Window.” The window belonged to the Bashford-Burmister company on Gurley Street. The rug’s braider was described as “an unusual old lady” living in the Arizona Pioneers’ Home. The 86-year-old was “stone cold deaf and still suffering from the effects of the sting of the vinegarroon (a large whip scorpion).” The rug was oval-shaped, approximately 2082 square inches, and fashioned “with her throbbing foot perched on a pillow on her bed.” The rug was impressive: “So clever is the artistry of the rug—an art belonging to an older generation and just about passing out—it is more than passing interest.”
Who was this elderly and peculiar rug-braider? At the time, she was going by Mary Katherine Cummings and was identified as such by the Courier. After her death in 1940, she became a legend, internationally famous, and portrayed by such Hollywood icons as Jo Van Fleet, Faye Dunaway, Isabella Rosellini and Joanna Pacula. Born in Hungary in 1850 as Mary Katherine Horony, she would be known in history as “Big Nose” Kate Elder and the inamorata of the legendary John Henry “Doc” Holliday. While she was in the Pioneers’ Home, only a handful of Prescottonians realized that Doc’s woman was living on a hill overlooking Prescott. It would be so for a little more than nine years. The 1935 Courier article didn’t mention this because its author surely was not aware of the full history of Mrs. Cummings.
Kate made the rug as a gift to her brother, Louis, from whom she’d been separated—and the rest of her siblings—at an early age not long after their mother and father died in 1865. Kate was fourteen; Louis only five. For reasons unknown, Kate was separated from her siblings—two sisters and two brothers (including Louis).
Eventually, all the Horony siblings were separated from each other, which was unquestionably traumatic for them. Louis wound up living with a teacher in Moline, Illinois, named Edward Hannecke. Little is known about his life after that. Kate, only sixteen, apparently had had enough of being passed around. An 1867 Scott County Probate (Iowa) deposition stated that, after several attempts to “ascertain the whereabouts” of Kate, it was concluded she’d run away. Her Wild West adventures began soon after. Around seventy years later, Louis—for whom Kate made the rug—reunited with Kate in Prescott. One can imagine how joyful that must have been for both of them.
It was when she was sometimes calling herself “Kate Holliday” that made her a Wild West legend. Although not a story that gives one a warm and fuzzy feeling, Doc and Kate eventually became an inseparable item historically. Mary Cummings, not mentioning Holliday, told the reporter she’d been in Prescott before, understandably mistaking the year as 1877; it was actually in late 1879. She and Doc went separate ways in early 1880 (if not earlier), but around six months later reunited in Tombstone. The famous Tombstone dramas don’t need repeating here, but Kate was sometimes in the thick of it all. Doc and Kate’s relationship was often stormy, and no documentation has been found showing they were ever legally married.
Later in life after Doc passed away, she married a miner named George Cummings. Kate, as Mary Cummings, entered the Pioneers’ Home on September 1, 1931, as a widow.
Brad Courtney thanks Dennis McGowan for finding and sharing the 1935 Courier article about Kate’s rug.
Brad Courtney and Constable Ron Williams will present a lecture “The Tombstone-Prescott Connections”, November 9th, 2:00 p.m. at the Sharlot Hall Museum (SHM) Education Center Auditorium. For more information and registration, check the links on the SHM website events calendar at sharlothallmuseum.org/event-calendar/
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1 The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.