Josephine's Description of Doc Holliday
A description of Doc Holliday from the memoir written by Josephine Sarah
Marcus Earp, unpublished at her death, but later edited from two manuscripts
by "Sadie" and annnotated by Glenn G. Boyer, a noted Tombstone/Earp
authority.
"Perhaps this is as good a time as any to talk about Doc. In a few words he
could be desribed as a well-educated, consumptive, frontier bum. His
friendship was Wyatt's Achilles Heel, at least at Tombstone, but Wyatt was
intensely loyal to Doc for having probably saved his life in Dodge City when
he was on the police force there. Doc had got the drop on someone or other
who had Wyatt covered with his pistol and was threatening to kill him.
"Doc had been well educated as a dentist and was a good one. He liked the
practice and pursued it on and off till the end of his days. Unfortunately
for him, he also liked women, liquor and gambling. The latter he found more
profitable than dentistry, since he was an even better gambler than a
dentist. Inevitably, on the frontier, the combination of Doc's expensive
tastes and his touchy personality led to trouble. He was rumored to have
killed men prior to coming to Tombstone. If this was true, who they were I
never knew, nor cared to discover. It is certain that he killed men at
Tombstone and did it at least partially because of his loyalty for Wyatt.
"Doc was good company to his friends and bad news for his enemies. He had a
sense of humor and a sense of fun as well. I liked to be around him, and we
say a lot of him after Wyatt and I left Tombstone, when we were all in
Colorado. Wyatt felt the same way I did about Doc. He was fond of him and
treated him much as he would a younger brother. Doc and Morg were also very
close, but in a different sense--as carousing buddies. They had the same
tastes and shared the rollicking pursuit of them. Doc took Morg's death very
hard, which accounts for my surprise that he didn't kill Johnny (Behan), whom
Doc felt was one of those behind Morg's murder. I think Wyatt restrained Doc
in that connection, but if the opportunity presented itself, Ihave my own
idea of what Doc would have done. The intensity of mutual hatred when the
vendetta finally broke into the open is almost unimaginable to one who has
never experience such a thing. Even I, who lived it all, can only
occasionally re-experience my own emotions then, like an elusive refrain
heard long ago.
"Doc and Morg with their quick tempers, were directly responsible for the
smouldering animosities breaking into the open. It may seem strange that
such a remark comes out of me. But it is the truth. Without this knowledge,
the happenings that eventually occurred cannot be readily understood, perhaps
not understood at all. Doc and Morg's responsibility for tirggering the
bloodshet lay deep in the hotheaded characters of both men.
"In additon to the traist just described, Doc was agreesively quarrelsome at
times and capable of bearing deep grudges. These grudges were never held
passively, Doc always felt that they should be settled. Perhaps that was his
hot Southern blood asserting itself. But Morg was the same way. Although
Morg possessed the intelligence and courage of his older brothers, he was
more quick to anger......"
Lisa Adolf
Josephine wrote:
