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In my previous post I started telling you the tale of John Henry “Doc” Holliday. I know it’s been a while (and I apologize for that), but let’s pick the story up where we left it.

The Education and Consumption of John Henry H

Not long after the incidents in Lowndes County, John Henry Holliday packed up his belongings and made his way east to study dentistry at the College of Dental Surgery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After 2 years of learning the ins and outs of drilling, filing, and otherwise tampering with folks’ teeth, John Henry was finally eligible for the moniker by which he would come to be known, and headed back to Georgia, where he started his first dental practice.

Sadly, though, Holliday’s return to Georgia didn’t last very long, as shortly after he set up shop, the coughing fits from which he’d been suffering became severe enough to prompt him to seek medical advice. “Doc” Holliday was diagnosed with consumption (known today as tuberculosis), and was advised to move to drier climates.

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When I was a kid, cowboy costumes were common enough, and we all had cap-guns modeled after six-shooters and old rifles, but we didn’t really know much about the West; we hadn’t even seen any westerns. This probably had something to do with growing up in a country half a world away, with a rather different culture. This is why the first Westerns I saw were the “modern” Westerns, like Silverado and Tombstone.

To those of you who haven’t seen it, Tombstone is a retelling of the story of Tombstone, Arizona; and the feud between Wyatt Earp and his brothers and compatriots, and the Cowboy gang. It’s a good movie, even if it only tells a part of the story, and focuses on the action and drama. Actually, it’s likely that it’s a good movie because it does so. But I digress. Of all the characters in Tombstone, the one that, to me, stood out the most, was not Wyatt Earp, but rather the blood-coughing, card-playing and quick-drawing Doc Holliday, memorably played by Val Kilmer.

Since Tombstone is not quite a documentary, the movie’s depiction of Doc Holliday was a wee bit shy of being accurate, but he was still an interesting man, who’d led an interesting life, about which I will tell you a bit.

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In my last post I started telling the story of Calamity Jane. Rowdy, hard-drinking and rough, Calamity Jane was arguably one of the most iconic characters of the Old West, and without a doubt one of the most notable women of the time, and has secured her place firmly in Western lore. We left off Jane’s story following her alleged military service, so if you’ll lend me your ears, I’ll tell you a bit about the rest of her life.

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As stated on our home page, WWWest Online will offer equal opportunities to all players, be they male or female. The real Wild West, however, was not so even a playing field. If I were to ask you to name some famous people from the Wild West, how many men would you name, and how many women? In the Old West, if you were well known, you were probably a man. Sure, some of those great men had great women behind them but, proverbs aside, not many women made a name for themselves. But some women did, and Calamity Jane was one of those few. Read the rest of this entry »