Big Nose Kate

Big Nose Kate (b. November 7, 1850-d. November 2, 1940) was a Hungarian-born prostitute and later longtime companion of Doc Holliday in the American Old West.

Life
Mary Katherine Horony (also spelled Harony, Haroney, and Horoney)[1 ] was born on November 7, 1850 in Pest, Hungary, the second-oldest daughter of Hungarian physician Michael Horony.

Immigration to the United States of America[edit]
Kate Horony (seated at left) and younger sister named Wilhelmina in about 1865, at the time they were orphaned. Kate is about 15-years-old.In 1860, Dr. Horony, his second wife Katharina, and his children left Hungary for the United States, ultimately reaching New York on the German ship  Bremen  in September 1860. Although no conclusive evidence or records exist, Dr. Horony is said to have accepted a position as personal physician to Austrian-born Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. Many authors[''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words who? ]''] have stated, without proof, that Horony left Mexico in 1863 with his family long before Maximilian's rule crumbled.

The Horony family settled in a predominantly German area of Davenport, Iowa, in 1862. Horony and his wife died in 1865 within a month of one another. Mary Katherine and her younger siblings were placed in the home of her brother-in-law, Gustav Susemihl, and in 1870 they were left in the care of attorney Otto Smith.[2 ] The 1870 United States Census records for Davenport, Iowa, show Kate's younger sister, 15-year-old Wilhelmina (Wilma), living with and working as a domestic for Austrian-born David Palter and his Hungarian wife Betty.

St. Louis and Dodge City[edit]
At age 16, Kate ran away from her foster home and is reported[''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words who? ]''] to have stowed away on a riverboat bound for St. Louis, Missouri. While in St. Louis, Kate claimed to have married a dentist named "Silas Melvin" and that the two had a son. Subsequently, husband and son were said[''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words who? ]''] to have died of yellow fever. No record currently proves the marriage, birth of a child, or the death of either Melvin or the child.[''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research original research? ]''] United States Census records report that a Silas Melvin lived in St. Louis in the mid 1860s but that he was married to a steamship captain's daughter named Mary Bust. The census also shows that another Melvin was employed by a St. Louis asylum. Since Kate met Doc Holliday in the early 1870s, there is speculation[''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words who? ]''] that she may have confused the two and their occupations when recalling the facts later in her life.[3 ]

By 1874, Kate left St. Louis and moved to Dodge City, Kansas. She was fined for working as a "sporting woman" in a sporting house run by Nellie "Bessie" (Ketchum) Earp,[4 ] James Earp's wife. Historians and biographers generally agree that Kate was a prostitute.[5 ] [6 ] [7 ]