Customer Reviews

The Earp Brothers of Tombstone: The Story of Mrs. Virgil Earp

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

In the last few years with the discovery of Frank Waters' original manuscript for this book, scholars of Western American History now understand how much Waters distorted the memoirs of Allie Earp (wife of Virgil Earp and sister-in-law of Wyatt) in this later, published version. It is shocking to realize that literally every negative thing Allie Earp was alleged to have said about Wyatt Earp in "The Earp Brothers of Tombstone" was absent in Waters' earlier manuscript. The conclusion that Waters altered Allie Earp's words to fit his strongly anti-Earp prejudice is inescapable. "The Earp Brothers of Tombstone" was highly influential in the 1960's and 1970's in creating the image of Wyatt Earp as basically an adulterous criminal far removed from the 1950's television portrayal as a peerless hero. In fact, Allie Earp's memoirs presented in the original manuscript show Wyatt Earp in a rather favorable light, as a stern and taciturn man, but honorable. Frankly, I think that the University of Nebraska should be ashamed to continue to publish this book in the light of the discovery of Waters' original manuscript -- it is not history, only a fictionalized smear.

"Aunt Allie" was a dead-honest original, and didn't deserve to have Frank Waters misuse the authority of her name to unload on an unsuspecting public this duplicitous melange of lies about her life, especially that part lived with the Earps.

Allie denounced this book in her own inimitable profane manner. In my possession are the letters of Hildreth Halliwell, Aunt Allie's grand niece, saying only that Allie threatened to "sue" Waters. (She actually threatened to kill him.) As Hildreth went on to say, "I get so mad every time I think of what Frank Waters wrote after spending hours with Aunt Allie I go berserk . . . he published a lot of lies . . . "

I make that clear in my Epilogue to I MARRIED WYATT EARP and did on two other occasions while Waters was still alive, thus giving him an opportunity to sue me for libel if he chose. Naturally he didn't.

Before Frank realized what I knew for sure, I visited him when he was writer-in-residence at Colorado State U. at Ft. Collins, in 1966, ten years before my I MARRIED WYATT EARP was published. I asked him what Aunt Allie had said about his book. He said, "She said it was the truth." I still have extensive notes from that meeting." He naturally said that, but it wasn't true, of course.

This book certainly is a "travesty" as Bruce Trinque comments in an adjoining review, and it is far worse than that. Of course Bruce is referring to Frank Waters' initial title, TOMBSTONE TRAVESTY. Travesty is mild, however, this book is an outrage. It is my opinion that principle requires that it no longer be published.

In sum, Waters' book is garbage, although many passages are pure gold. The book's value is as a source for the more knowledgeable to attempt to separate the gold from the garbage. It certainly is a curiosity. But it isn't a dependable memoir.

The author must have had a no-so-hidden agenda to debunk the man and the myth of Wyatt Earp. I have read a number of books on the Earp brothers, especially the Tombstone days. I have also read the transcript or at least what is reported to be the transcript of Judge Spicer's ruling on the murder charges brought against the Earps as a result of THE gunfight. The author in my opinion has badly and intentionally distorted the facts. I threw away my copy of this book.

I find Fred Waters to be like so many other writers who try to make a name for themselves (as well as a buck) by taking cheap shots at and writing tawdry yellow sheet propaganda about an American icons.

These hacks take the easy but foul route when writing so called histories of the famous. It's easy to slander an icon (especially a dead one) by taking an opposite slant on the person's accepted character. (Accepted by those who knew him personally, that is). In this way you not only get attention to yourself (some people are like vultures and want to hear dirt), and it diminishes someone whose height and fame you will never achieve. All the while making a living off the fame of the person you are destroying. Dead icons cannot defend themselves, so it is also an act of cowardice. These people are literary leeches of the worst kind.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp has been a life long study of mine (60 years now). I have read just about every book, article and slanderous rag that has his name in it. I find most to be trash, worthy of nothing more than tossing into the garbage heap. Most are not worth the time or effort to read. Fred Waters book is such a book. Fiction is fiction. If a library decides to stock this book they should put it in the fiction section.

Wyatt Earp was a man, a real man, a man's man. He was neither saint nor demon. He was a man of his times when real men were men and they did things they had to do. Things that few men today would have neither the stomach nor the nerve to do. They sometimes made friends along the way and they sometimes made enemies along the way. It is to be expected that the friends would aggrandize Wyatt while his enemies would play him down. However few of them then or now would have had the guts to face him down.

Any student of Wyatt Earp should stick to writers who tell the story as it was told by people who knew the man. One such writer is Glenn G. Boyer. While I have never met this man face to face, his works have been the most trustworthy and envied of all the works about Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp. Mr. Boyer tells the good when Wyatt done good and he tells the bad when Wyatt done bad. One thing for certain Fred Waters would not have had the nerve to let Wyatt read the first draft of his book had Wyatt been alive at the time he wrote it.

Like most books about the Earp-Clanton feud, this one has at least as much gas as gospel. Allie Earp hated Wyatt, and those who have an iron in the fire are not entirely reliable as their emotions color what they say and, sometimes, invent. Wyatt and his brothers were not heroes; but this book paints Wyatt as a complete bum, and I seriously doubt this is true either. I found the writing style a bit tiresome, the charges against the Earps to strain credulity in spots, and the tale still not fully told. The Feud between the Earps and Clantons was so bitter, and cost so much in blood, that nobody involved in it could be neutral or forthright on the point; all had lost too much. And most of Tombstone was a partisan town. This is my fourth book read about the Earps, and none of the accounts agree either in general, or in the particulars. Of all the books I have read so far, however, this one, regarding the Earps, is the most worthless. What is good about the book, and why I don't pan it down to only 1 star, is that the early recollections of Virgil's wife, growing up on the prarie, are without the bitterness and bile that recounts the Tombstone part of the tale.

Reading this tripe, you can see why Virgil Earp's widow, Allie, threatened to shoot Frank Waters on sight. For the enlightenment of the three people who don't know the story, Waters paid court to Allie Earp, pumping her for information. Allie had a bone to pick with Wyatt Earp and Waters ran with it. This collection of distortion and outright lies is the result. Waters no doubt gleaned the balance of his (mis)information from the Tombstone Nugget's pages or, most likely out of his own prejudices. Do bear in mind that the book was written during the height of the revisionist movement in the history of the "old west", and hatchet jobs on the notables of the time were common. The Earps were certainly not a bunch of altar boys, but they were definitely not the murdering pimps Waters makes them out to be. Maybe he was hired by the descendants of the McLowreys, some of whom still hold a grudge.
This book would make good fire starter.

Dennis Hanisch

I was interested to see the Earp's story from the perspective of Allie Earp. I wanted to hear more about Mattie Earp and in that regard I was not disappointed. I, however, did not enjoy the way Frank Waters add words, in my personal opinion, to the comments made by Allie during the telling of her life's story with Virgil and the Earp brothers.

Allie appear to be a very simple person, and that can be easily identified in her language. On top of that it appears that Allie had a complete lack of knowledge or understanding as to the political environment and events that took place in Tombstone during those days.

I found better information from Boyer books, including the story of Josephine Earp, "I married Wyatt Earp". Nonetheless, in spite Waters continuous intention to taint Wyatt Earp reputation, the story has some interesting and refreshing points as seen from Allie's eyes.

I liked the fact of the amount of history in the book. The way the writer describes some of the scenery, it feels like you are there. Allie did not like Wyatt....she was a little snip. I would have like to have known what happened to Morg's wife and some of the others. And somethings she would not tell..... Overall I found it very interesting.

I read this book a few years ago soon after the move Tombstone appeared on the big screen. I agree with the other reader that the book lacked the hollywood glitz but I really appreciated it. It was very informative and shed light on the Earps from a different angle. It really made the reader think. I went and watched the hollywood movies after reading the book and had a different impression all around. I am still researching the life and times of the Earps. I find that time period facinating. If you are looking for glitz you won't find a lot of here. But if you are looking for a good story with good facts of objective nature, then dig in.

This book is a remarkable treasure. A painfully honest look at the Earp brothers from the point of view of Virgil's wife. Unbalanced in it's own way as all memoirs are, it's still the most credible account we have of this troubled but fascinating family. Waters has been under attack lately by a new generation of Wyatt Worshipers but his book stands out among the volumes of Earp literature as a light in a dark forest. Read this as an antidote to Casey Terfertiller's love letter to Wyatt that passes itself off as a objective biography.