“I am trying to keep you alive!” said Kate Elder to Doc Holliday after he yelled at her during an argument saying “You’re an insatiable bitch!- You’ll kill me before the rot does!”1 Katie (Big Nosed) Elder was the wife of the infamous outlaw gunslinger Doc Holliday from the mid 1800’s who died after contracting Tuberculosis at a very young age.2 Katie Elder was money hungry, and she played Doc for his money. She used his amazing skills at card games to her advantage. Even Doc himself once described her as “a leech for money.” It seems Doc knew who she was, but in his own way he still loved her. However, most people, including Doc himself, saw her as someone who used Doc. If this was so, then why did Doc keep her around until he died, instead of leaving her right off the bat?
Kate Elder met Doc after she ran into him after escaping from Jonas Stonebreak, a gunslinger that killed her friend. He took her in and over the years she ended up learning about his early life and how he used to be a dentist before becoming a gunslinger. She also learned that he had tuberculosis, a deadly lung disease that leads to a slow death, which he contracted from his mother at the age of fifteen while treating her for the same disease.3
In her time with Doc she learned about the symptoms of tuberculosis, so she could have a better understanding of his condition in order to be able to help him during the time he had left. She admitted to him many times (and even after his death) how much she loved him, and although he treated her harshly at times, Doc had a way with himself and with words, so that she felt loved and understood by him like no other man before. “He was unlike any other man before, so full of himself and knew how to play the part well.”4 Kate told stories of how she and Doc traveled to many places from Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, and New Mexico, where they would enter a saloon and challenge any man to try and beat Doc at a game of cards. At first she didn’t like Doc going out and wasting away his life just for money while she was left stranded in the room alone for many hours of the night until Doc returned home drunk and covered in the smell of cigarette smoke. Despite knowing the symptoms of tuberculosis, and after many arguments, she began encouraging his gambling addiction and stood by him while “He ate his life away in drinking and gambling.”5 Everyday she encouraged his other addictions too, to alcohol and to cigarettes. Sometimes while he was gambling she would stick a cigarette in his mouth or order him another drink until he would eventually blackout.6
This went on for many years, until Doc eventually became numb to all the arguments, and decided to leave. Kate, explaining the fight, said “I often let my temper get the better of my common sense, but I misunderstood his bouts of anger when his body betrayed him. He turned to me as a scapegoat.”7 It was not in her interest to ever highlight the fact that he was dying in any of their arguments, but during that last argument, she said “It is not my fault you are dying! I have done my best but you don’t care about what happens to me when you go!”8 In an interview, Kate admitted that, “I failed to see that his fury at himself was taken out on me, as my good health was a constant reminder of his illness.”9 They fought and yelled at each other while Doc flung around clothes to take with him and pushed her onto the bed, where she then tried to seduce him in an attempt to calm him down. Kate explained, “If words didn’t work, maybe seduction will. He put his hands around my throat calling me a whore while I told him I just loved him. Then he kissed me and we made love in that bed.”10 However, the next morning Doc was gone. He left her so he could go die alone in peace and solitude.
Kate hated Doc for leaving, and it wasn’t until years later that she found him again in Tombstone (a small town in Cochise County, Arizona) where he was being wrongly accused of something he didn’t do. This is where it’s believed she “betrayed” him. Doc was being accused of robbing a stagecoach and murdering the driver. Doc’s enemies in Tombstone actually found Kate, got her drunk and forced her to testify against Doc saying he did it. It wasn’t until the next morning, when sober, that Kate told the truth and admitted that she was forced to testify against Doc. When Doc found out what she had done, he never forgave her, although he knew that she didn’t do it intentionally. He just couldn’t come to forgive her for even daring to say it in the first place. Kate said “That was the last time I ever saw Doc before he left Tombstone and died years later.”11
- Doc Holliday, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 77, 79. ↵
- Forest Tennant, “Doc Holliday: A Story of Tuberculosis, Pain, and Self Medication in the Wild West,” New York: Practical Pain Management 12, No.11 (2015): 1-5. ↵
- New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2009, s.v. “Doc Holliday 1881,” by John Dalton Macdonald. ↵
- Katie Elder, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 88. ↵
- New World Encyclopedia, 2016, s.v. “Doc Holliday,” by John Joshua Webb. ↵
- George P. Cosmatos, Tombstone (1881; Tucson, AZ: Kevin Jarre, 1993), DVD. ↵
- Katie Elder, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 87. ↵
- Katie Elder, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 87. ↵
- Katie Elder, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 87. ↵
- Katie Elder, quoted in Jane Candia Coleman, Doc Holliday: Doc Holliday’s Woman (New York: Warner Books, 1995), 88. ↵
- Maggie Van Ostrand, “Doc Holliday and Katie Elder,” Texas: History Studies International Journal of History 10, No. 7 (2018): 1-3. ↵
57 comments
Alia Hernandez Daraiseh
This was a well written essay correctly depicting the relationship of Doc Holiday and Kate Elder. I have never heard of this story before until now, and honestly their relationship was pretty toxic. It hurts knowing that people could be as cruel as using you for their advantage, knowing that their actions are hurting the other person. Great job on this article though!
Aaron Sandoval
This article was an interesting read, I don’t know much about outlaws, and even less about Doc Holiday and his relationship with Kate Elder. While this article was short it did a good job of summing up the toxic relationship that Doc and Kate had while keeping the reader engaged. I also really enjoyed the inclusion of quotes from Kate Elder, it’s a good way of showing the relationship from her perspective while also telling aspects of his life.
Madeline Chandler
In all honesty, the name of Doc Holliday is familiar but i did not know anything about him or his relationships in detail till the article. His addictions and relationship was so toxic and they fed off of each other. And I had no idea that he was a dentist before his was a gunslinger. It was such an interesting time in U.S. history, that there were gunslingers ad the “wild west.” I see why Doc Holliday left that relationship.
Azariel Del Carmen
I don’t know how she could stand this guy for that long in that kind of relationship. The level of toxicity was like equivalent to any relationship now today. I’m shocked by how the end was also with a false statement shown a lie later and the level of distrust was very high. I don’t know how she managed it but I guess maybe she had no escape apart from staying with him
Bailey Godwin
I have never heard of this story before and it amazes me how toxic these two people were to each other. Kate just used Doc and never had his best interests in mind. She would literally feed him alcohol and cigarettes to the point that his body was dysfunctional. She knew that he had very poor health and still did these things.
Alexandria Wicker
This story is very shocking. This relationship was very very toxic. This couple was obviously not made for each other. Kate seemed rude and seemed like all she wanted to do was kill Doc, and Doc was just abusive and used Kate as his own personal punching bag. I clicked on this article not really knowing what to expect and this was definitely not what I thought it was going to be about. These two were both very awful people and should have never been a couple.
Reagan Clark
I have never heard this story before… talk about a TOXIC relationship. This is two people who never should have been a couple to begin with. This article was good but too brief. I wish that it went into more details about Doc’s criminal ways as well as Kate’s life after. They used each other and were abusive as well. It just seemed like Kate wanted to kill him at every turn and take his money. Doc just wanted a punching bag. He probably came to regret that decision. They never should have been a couple… EVER.
Thiffany Yeupell
From their first encounter to their last moments together, the relationship between Kate and Doc seems to be a hectic period for both individuals, if it can even be considered a ‘relationship’ at all. Kate seems to be quite parasitic and enabling to Doc, while Doc himself was an individual who went through life, waiting for his inevitable end to due to his condition. Yet, through all of Kate’s actions towards Doc, the one act that truly caused him to disappear and cut all ties until his death was one that could be considered ‘accidental’ and ‘due to circumstances.’ Being forced to testify, the one act that may have garnered Kate some sympathy from Doc had done the exact opposite. Had she not testified, the timeline of Doc’s end may have drastically changed and Kate may have reinserted herself into his life somehow, but time has made its move and history has this story to remember.
Margaret Cavazos
This article was an interesting read, as it focused on an illness and personal relationship of a person known in American history as an outlaw. I had never heard of Kate, and she showed a different dimension of Doc. Kate and Doc’s relationship was a partnership in a different way, it seems Kate was in it for money, and Doc was in it for health care. They loved each other in their own ways it seems, as the article says, and although that love was not healthy, it did benefit both for a while. It’s sad that Kate was forced to testify against Doc and further ruin any chance of reconciliation, although they seem to have been past the point of reconciliation either way.
David Castaneda Picon
Wow! This is a very good example of a toxic relationship, and we often see couples like them that just use each other for mutual gain. I think this is a great article, and I enjoyed reading it and learning that there where toxic relationships back at that time. I believe that Doc and Kate were in love but I will say that love is not enough sometimes in order to keep two people together.