Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp

by Ann Kirschner

  147 The sight of Wyatt Earp . . . at a seder: Melvin Shestack was the television producer who wrote about meeting Wyatt Earp and Henry Fonda in the Forward, July 1, 1994.

  148 condemn all those things she did when she was young: The reverse story is told about Wyatt by the Welsh sisters. They too stayed with Josephine and Wyatt, but in their memory, it was Wyatt who “watched them like a hawk,” and when they stayed too long at the beach, would say slowly in his deep voice, “Grace, time to come home.” Casey Tefertiller, interview with Grace Welsh Spolidoro.

  151 “Cowboys” were in ample supply in the Los Angeles stockyards: Raoul Walsh evokes this era in Each Man in His Time: The Life Story of a Director (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 75.

  152 “Tamed the baddies, huh?”: Walsh, 105.

  153 “those ‘damn fool dudes,’ as he called them”: Quoted in Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 111–12.

  153 The “King of the Cowboys”: Aside from his accomplishments as an actor and stuntman, Tom Mix appears on the album cover of the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (third row).

  153 “It haunted his mind”: Roger S. Peterson interview of William S. Hart Jr., April 6, 1983, Roger S. Peterson Collection.

  155 Hooker drafted a manuscript she showed to Wyatt: The manuscript, “An Arizona Vendetta: The Truth About Wyatt Earp and Some Others,” is in the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles.

  156 “Doc Holliday was about 5′10 ½″, slender, good looking”: Flood notes, dated September 9, 1922, Ragsdale Collection. See ladyattheokcorral.com.

  165 Albert insisted that he was reporting the conversation accurately: This is the version that Josephine tells in the Cason manuscript and in a letter she sent to Frank Lockwood. However, Wyatt Earp told Frederick Bechdolt that it was Albert’s wife Julia Behan, who reported the conversation to Josephine, who then repeated it to Wyatt.

  167 There were lots of good married people there: See David Dempsey and Raymond P. Baldwin, The Triumphs and Trials of Lotta Crabtree (New York: Morrow, 1968).

  168 “Old Wyatt Earp is still on deck”: William M. Raine to Ira Rich Kent, April 8, 1928, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Raine’s article, “Helldorado: Stories of Arizona’s Wild Old Days, When You Couldn’t Keep a Bad Man Down,” appeared in the magazine Liberty on July 16, 1927.

  170 Bat Masterson: Lake may have known Masterson when he worked at the Morning Telegraph and Lake worked at the New York Herald. Kirschner interview with Anne Collier. See Collier, “Stuart N. Lake’s Wyatt Earp and the Great Depression,” B.A. thesis, University of La Verne, 2011.

  171 Josephine was forced to borrow money: According to John Gilchriese and William Shillingberg, Josephine used the loan to pay gambling debts, and was barred from seeing Doheny again. Doheny was the model for Daniel Plainview in the film There Will Be Blood.

  172 interview Earp about six times: Tefertiller, Wyatt Earp, 325.

  173 “straight as an arrow”: Roger S. Peterson, interview with Alice “Peggy” and Alvin Greenberg, October 13, 1981, Roger S. Peterson Collection.

  174 Adela Rogers St. John declared that she would never forget seeing Wyatt: Quoted in Stephens, pp. 231–35. The original article was published in the American Weekly, May 22, 1960.

  174 The brothers had not been particularly close: In later years, Newton’s family resented the publicity about Wyatt, especially since they wanted to portray Newton as a successful (and law-abiding) farmer who “remained active in church work, his good deeds never making the newspapers.” Quoted in Chaput, Earp Papers, 230.

  175 Dr. Shurtleff stayed all day, as did a nurse: There is some speculation that the “nurse” that Josephine mentions in the Cason manuscript was actually Flood. He may have preferred anonymity, or perhaps Josephine preferred to write a deathbed scene that included only Dr. Shurtleff, an unnamed nurse, and Josephine herself.

  176 Hattie rode with John Flood in the cortege: Flood to Edward Earp, June 10, 1952. “Mrs. Earp did not attend her husband’s funeral (a reason, I shall explain, to you, personally, upon your visit to LA), so I represented her at the funeral, and rode, in the cortege, with her sister Mrs. Emil Lehnhardt, long since deceased.” Ragsdale Collection.

  176 there was room for Wyatt and, someday, for Josephine: The ashes of Josephine and Wyatt are buried in a single plot in the Hills of Eternity cemetery in Colma, California, an area of 1.9 square miles, which was created as an incorporated cemetery area after burials were prohibited in San Francisco in 1900.

  CHAPTER 5: JOSEPHINE’S LAST TRAIL

  178 Fox sent a crew to film the entire event: Sadly, only a fragment of this remains; the rest of the footage was lost in a plane crash.

  179 inquired when he could expect his copy of Stuart Lake’s book: “When will Wyatt’s story be in print and available? I am exceedingly anxious to read it?” U.S. Marshal Mauk to Josephine Marcus Earp, September 17, 1931, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.

  180 head over to the Welsh home to scrounge for food: Grace Welsh Spolidoro, interview by Tefertiller, Tefertiller Collection.

  184 “minor thefts of official funds to felonies of scandalous proportions”: Lake to Josephine, April 27, 1929, Lake Collection, Huntington Library.

  186 his broad hint that “the person” was Josephine: In his letter of October 8, 1939, Leussler states definitively that “Forty-dollar Sadie” Mansfield was not Josephine “Sadie” Marcus. Lake Collection, Huntington Library. There are other arguments to consider: Sadie Mansfield’s name appears in the 1882 Tombstone census, which was compiled in July. By then, Wyatt Earp was long gone from Tombstone. It is unlikely that Josephine would have stayed behind to work and even more unlikely that she would return to using her nom de plume as a prostitute, one already linked publicly to Johnny Behan, after she and Johnny split up. This (to me) settles the question that Josephine was not the prostitute Sadie Mansfield. Aside from the Mansfield confusion, there has been speculation that Josephine left home as early as 1874 and had been a teenage prostitute. I have found no corroboration for this theory, other than one tantalizing and unsubstantiated reference from Leonard Cason. He told his sister Jeanne Cason Laing that Josephine was no dance-hall girl. He believed that she ran away from home and became a prostitute when she was fifteen years old, then met Behan, and that the Tombstone fight was “all over her.” Jeanne Cason Laing asked her brother for evidence about Josephine’s teenage years, and when he offered none, she dismissed his comments as speculative. There the matter stands, unless and until additional evidence comes to light. Jeanne Cason Laing interview, Boyer Collection.

  186 “she was known as Sadie Behan”: Lake to Kent, February 13, 1930, Lake Collection, Houghton Library.

  187 Kent brushed off Lake’s circumstantial case against Josephine: Kent to Lake, February 17, 1930, Lake Collection.

  187 “hit her right between the eyes”: Leussler to Lake, March 6, 1929, Lake Collection.

  188 “She is undependable, mentally; unbalanced, psychopathically suspicious”: Lake to Kent, October 15, 1930, Lake Collection.

  188 “We signed the paper as a matter of record for possible publishers”: Lake to Dodge, February 7, 1929, Lake Collection.

  189 “tact, patience, kindliness, and forbearance”: Kent to Lake, October 23, 1930. Lake Collection.

  189 “what your well-meaning but entirely mis-informed friends and advisors tell you”: Lake to Josephine, January 10, 1931, Lake Collection.

  190 Kent accepted Lake’s edited manuscript and sent the author a flattering telegram: Josephine to Lake, February 9, 1931, on Hunsaker and Cosgrove, Attorneys and Counselors at Law, stationery, and telegram from Kent to Lake, March 4, 1931, Lake Collection.

  191 Frontier Marshal was a runaway success: Lake had just one major sales disappointment: the mighty Book-of-the-Month Club selected The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian who coined the phrase “the American Dream.” Interestingly, bo
th Frontier Marshal and Epic of America are still in print.

  192 “I think it is the best story of the old West”: Clum to Dodge, November 9, 1931, Lake Collection.

  192 He must have been hypnotized by Wyatt: Raine to Ticknor, January 6, 1932, Lake Collection.

  193 Josephine was losing her circle of allies: Lake to Kent, January 15, 1933. “That makes 3 [deaths] in a year,” Lake noted, in a letter that he signed, “Yours, until Franklin D. Roosevelt deals from a straight deck.” Lake Collection.

  194 the book was “dictated to Mr. Lake by my husband”: Josephine to Dr. Sonnichsen, February 13, 1939, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.

  196 Edna could live comfortably on her inheritance: By 1958 the oil royalties were more than half of Edna’s annual income. She eventually became a respected artist whose works were shown at the Whitney Museum in New York and galleries in Oakland and San Francisco. In 1958 she married artist Lou Siegriest, and she died in 1966 on a sketching trip to Mexico. Until her death, her husband was unaware of her true age and that the family was Jewish. Kirschner interview with Suzanne Westaway.

  198 courage, integrity, and patriotism: Jeanne Cason Laing compared Lincoln Ellsworth naming his boat Wyatt Earp to naming the space shuttle after Wyatt Earp.

  200 Josephine arrived the next day: This account draws on the biography of Mabel Cason written by her son Walter (this chapter is called “the Josie Earp venture”), and on my interviews with Walter Cason. It also relies on interviews with Walter, Jeanne, and Rae, recorded by Glenn Boyer. Boyer Collection.

  203 “he didn’t have the best of principles where women were concerned”: Mabel Cason to Mrs. Merritt Beeson, April 9, 1956, Boyer Collection.

  204 “her big beautiful dark eyes were sparkling”: Boyer, interview with Jeanne Cason Laing, 1974, Boyer Collection.

  206 “We all loved Aunt Allie because she had such wonderful stories and an Irish wit”: Casey Tefertiller, taped interview with Frank and Barbara Waters, Tefertiller Collection.

  206 “a typical little Jewess”: It is worth noting that Halliwell made these repellent comments not in the 1930s but in 1971. Halliwell continued, “Josephine’s father was a Jewish silk merchant in the early days in San Francisco and she was just a typical little east side Jewess. . . . She got money for anything she did and she never let her right hand know what her left hand was doing. She was a clever little schemer.” Recorded interview, September 21, 1971, Special Collections, University of Arizona Library.

  207 “The tombstones are rattling all over the place”: Naomi Waters to Frank Waters, 1938, Jeff Wheat Collection.

  208 “Wyatt Earp’s widow was a problem in herself”: Lake to Stanley Rinehart Jr., September 19, 1949, Lake Collection.

  208 It was Josephine’s first visit to Tombstone: This account is drawn from Boyer’s recorded interviews with the Cason family, my interview with Walter Cason, and the Cason manuscript.

  209 “Whoring!”: This may have been the source of Leonard Cason’s belief that Josephine had been a prostitute.

  210 “It ought to be another Gone with the Wind ”: Josephine Marcus Earp to Harrison Leussler, April 24, 1937, Boyer Collection. Gone with the Wind was published in 1936.

  212 “You are perfectly right in telling the story of your life”: Harrison Leussler to Josephine, June 11, 1937, Gary Greene Collection. I have searched for but not located Mabel Cason’s original drawings.

  213 Leussler immediately sent their draft chapter to Stuart Lake: Lake told Mabel that he had seen her manuscript, and that he believed he had exclusive rights to all future Earp biographies. Walter Cason unpublished biography of Mabel Cason.

  213 The fire was prepared: Jeanne Cason Laing describes this as a fireplace, Walter Cason as a backyard incinerator.

  214 Edna relented and made a small settlement upon her aunt: Josephine to Flood, September 28, 1940. “I had a letter from Edna three weeks ago last Thursday saying they would give me thirty dollars a month and that I should withdraw the suit and in the same letter Edna wrote me Emil enclosed a note to me telling me that they would settle the oil lease with Getty and they would give me $40 a month back pay.” Ragsdale Collection.

  216 he finally had the real story of Tombstone: Lake to Ticknor, February 24, 1945, Lake Collection.

  216 the family of Mrs. Addie Schofield Sinclair: The Sinclair family lived in Kern County; presumably, Josephine met Addie through the oil business.

  CHAPTER 6: PLANET EARP

  221 making movies and publishing books: For an extensive roundup of books and films related to the Earps, see Paul Andrew Hutton, “Showdown at the Hollywood Corral: Wyatt Earp and the Movies,” Montana: the Magazine of Western History, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer , 1995), 2–31.

  221 some 100,000 American soldiers received free paperbacks: Lake never stopped being his own best press agent. After the war, he asked Houghton Mifflin to send a first edition to the White House at the personal request of President Eisenhower, who (Lake says) became interested in the book while playing golf with some of Lake’s friends.

  222 old steamer trunks in his mother’s basement labeled “Property of Wyatt Earp”: Kirschner interview with Felton Macartney.

  222 John Gilchriese, a devoted historian and collector of all things western: Kirschner interviews with Walter Cason and Murdock Gilchriese.

  226 Gilchriese shared these stories with other people: See the introduction and notes by William Shillingberg to the catalog of the John D. Gilchriese Collection of Tombstone and the West, auctioned through John’s Western Gallery. It is possible that Gilchriese’s long-awaited biography, or the notes to it, will someday be published, which will provide an opportunity to verify the stories that Gilchriese claimed to have received from Flood.

  227 “That is what Josie was covering from us”: Mabel to Mrs. William Irvine, February 5, 1959, Boyer Collection.

  229 Allie’s irresistibly folksy dialect: See Waters, Earp Brothers.

  229 Waters later admitted that he had combined Allie’s words: See the Frank Waters Papers, Center for Southwest Research, which include correspondence between Waters and the Arizona Historical Society.

  233 This turned out to be . . . John Flood’s typed manuscript: There are many versions and copies of Flood’s “original” manuscript. Boyer acquired one that may have been given by Josephine to her niece; he then published this version in a limited edition as Wyatt S. Earp: Wyatt Earp’s Autobiography (Sierra Vista, Ariz.: Loma V. Bissette, 1981), and deposited the original typescript at the Ford County Historical Society. Flood gave other copies to John Gilchriese. Some of Flood’s original notes and drawings became part of the Ragsdale Collection; others are in the Boyer Collection at Ford County Historical Society.

  233 perhaps he had also bowdlerized the memoirs of Josephine Earp: For an in-depth comparison of Boyer’s I Married Wyatt Earp to the Cason manuscript, see ladyattheokcorral.com. Other discussions of the Boyer controversy include Jeffrey J. Morey, “The Curious Vendetta of Glenn G. Boyer,” Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History 18, no. 4 (October–December 1994): 22–28; Gary L. Roberts, Trailing an American Mythmaker: History and Glenn G. Boyer’s Tombstone Vendetta (Hamilton, Mont.: Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association, 1998); Gary L. Roberts, “The Real Tombstone Travesty: The Earp Controversy from Bechdolt to Boyer,” Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association (WOLA) Journal 8, no. 3 (Fall 1999); Tony Ortega, “How the West Was Spun,” Phoenix New Times, December 24, 1998; and “I Varied Wyatt Earp,” Phoenix New Times, March 4, 1999. For these and others, see “The Boyer Files,” http://www.tombstonehisto ryarchives.com/?page_id=80

  234 “If it isn’t Josie, it ought to be”: Boyer wasn’t the only person who thought that the photograph was authentic: Christenne Welsh and Grace Welsh Spolidoro were among those who had insisted that this photograph was Josephine. Jeanne Laing believed that she herself had given the photograph to Glenn Boyer.

  235 “My mother and Aunt were aware of the earlier ‘Clum’ manuscr
ipt”: Jeanne Cason Laing expressed this idea on many other occasions in recorded interviews. In 1974, when asked by Glenn Boyer about Mabel and Vinnolia’s initial reaction to the idea of writing a book about Josephine’s life with Wyatt, Jeanne answered that they were very interested and “they knew this had been done before by Mr. Clum.” Boyer fueled the controversy with contradictory accounts of the Clum manuscript over the years, claiming sometimes that he could produce it at will, and at other times that it went missing during his move from Hawaii to Arizona. In more recent comments, he describes the “manuscript” as a “generic term” for source materials.

  | Index

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

  Ackerman, Harold, 201, 205, 208, 209, 211, 214, 222, 223, 226–27

  Ackerman, Vinnolia Earp, 8, 10, 11, 137, 201–3, 205, 208–15, 217, 218, 222, 223, 225, 233

  Adventure Magazine, 164

  Alaska, 92–134. See also Nome, Alaska; Rampart, Alaska; St. Michael, Alaska

  Bering Sea, 105, 108, 111, 115, 120

  boomtowns of, 93, 107, 122, 132–33 (see also Nome, Alaska)

  Chilkoot Pass, 94, 95, 128

  Earps in Nome, 107–15

  Earps in Rampart, 96–104

  Earps in St. Michael, Alaska, 104–7

  Earps’ trip up the Yukon river, 95–96

  Jewish financing of Alaska mining supplies and ventures, 96 (see also Alaska Commercial Company)

  Klondike gold fields, 89, 92, 93, 94, 103, 107

  miners and hardships of, 94

  prices of goods in, 105

  psychological hardships in, 99

  suicide in, 99–100, 254n 100

  travel to, 93

  weather of, 102–3

  winters in, 99, 114–15, 117–18

  Alaska Commercial Company, 96, 125–26