Kate’s Rug
By Bradley G. Courtney
On Friday, December 20, 1935, the Prescott Evening Courier published a story entitled, “Unusual Rug Shown In Downtown Window.” The window belonged to the Bashford-Burmister company on Gurley Street. The braider of the rug was described as “an unusual old lady” who was 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.” Furthermore, 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 unusual rug-weaver? At the time, she was going by Mary Katherine Cummings. After her death in 1940, she became the stuff of legends, internationally famous, and would be portrayed by such Hollywood icons as Jo Van Fleet, Faye Dunaway, Isabella Rosellini, and Joanna Pacula. She was born in Hungary in 1850 as Mary Katherine Horony, but would be generally known in history as “Big Nose” Kate Elder and the inamorata of the legendary John Henry “Doc” Holliday. While she was living in the Pioneers’ Home, only a handful of Prescottonians realized that Doc’s woman was living in a building on a hill overlooking Prescott. It would be so for a little more than nine years. The above-cited 1935 Courier article did not mention this fact because the author surely was not aware of the full history of Mrs. Cummings.
The rug was made by Kate as a gift to her brother, Louis, who she had been separated from—and the rest of her siblings—at an early age not long after their mother and father died in 1865. Kate was but fourteen; Louis only five. For reasons unknown, Kate was separated from her siblings, of which there were two sisters and two brothers (including Louis).
Eventually, all the Horony siblings were separated, which was unquestionably traumatic for all of 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 deposition stated that after several attempts to “ascertain the whereabouts” of Kate, it was concluded that she had run away. Her Wild West adventures began soon after. Around seventy years later, Louis reunited with Kate in Prescott. One can only imagine how joyful that must have been for both of them.
It was when she was sometimes calling herself “Kate Holliday” that would make her a Wild West legend. Although it is not a story that gives one a warm and fuzzy feeling, Doc and Kate eventually became an inseparable item historically. Mary Cummings, not mentioning Doc, told the reporter that she had been in Prescott before, understandably mistaking the year as being 1877 although it was actually in late 1879. They went separate ways in early 1880, but after six months reunited in Tombstone. The famous Tombstone dramas do not 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 that they were ever legally married.