Her parents had immigrated from the Posel region in Prussia (current day Poland), arriving in New York around 1850. But Henry Marcus struggled to make a living in New York City and read about the growing city of San Francisco. When Josephine was 7 years old, he moved his family there, traveling by ship to Panama via the Isthmus of Panama, before catching a steamship to San Francisco. They arrived while the city was recovering from the disastrous earthquake of 21 October 1868.
When Marcus had difficulty finding work, the family moved in with his oldest daughter and son-in-law in a working-class tenement. Josephine ran away, possibly as early as age 14, and traveled to Arizona, where she had an "adventure". Much of her life from about 1874 to 1880 is uncertain; she worked hard to keep this period of her life private, even threatening legal action against writers and movie producers. She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona as early as 1874. There is some evidence that she lived in Prescott and Tip Top, Arizona Territory under the assumed name of Sadie Mansfield, and worked as a prostitute from 1874 to 1876, before becoming ill and returning to San Francisco. The name Sadie Mansfield was also recorded in Tombstone. Researchers have found that the two names share extremely similar characteristics and circumstances.
Later in life Josephine described her first years in Arizona as "a bad dream". What is known for certain is that she traveled to Tombstone using the name Josephine Marcus in October, 1880. She wrote that she met Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan when she was 17 and he was 33. He promised to marry her and she joined him in Tombstone. He reneged but persuaded her to stay. Behan was sympathetic to ranchers and certain outlaw Cowboys, who were at odds with Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp and his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan. Josephine left Behan in 1881, before the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which Wyatt and his brothers killed three cowboys. She went to San Francisco in March 1882 and was joined that fall by Wyatt, with whom she remained in a common-law marriage for 46 years until his death.
Josephine and Wyatt moved throughout their life together, from one boomtown to another, until they finally bought a cottage in the Sonoran Desert town of Vidal, California on the Colorado River, where they spent the cooler seasons. In the summer they retreated to Los Angeles, where Wyatt struck up relationships with some of the early cowboy actors, including William S. Hart and Tom Mix. Josephine Earp and her relationship to Wyatt became known after amateur historian Glenn Boyer published I Married Wyatt Earp, based on a manuscript allegedly written in part by her. Boyer's book was considered a factual memoir, and cited by scholars, studied in classrooms, and used as a source by filmmakers for 32 years. In 1998, reporters and scholars found that Boyer could not document many of the facts he wrote about the time period in Tombstone. Some critics described the book as a fraud and a hoax, and the University of Arizona withdrew the book from its catalog.
Wyatt Earp was the last surviving Earp brother and the last surviving participant of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral when he died at home in the Earps' small rented bungalow in Los Angeles, of chronic on 13 January 1929 at the age of 80. Charlie Welsh's daughter Grace Spolidora and his daughter-in-law, Alma, were the only witnesses to Wyatt's cremation.
Josie, who was of Jewish heritage, had Earp's body cremated and secretly buried his remains in the Marcus family plot at the Hills of Eternity, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California. They are buried near her parents and her brother Nathan. When she died at age 83 in Los Angeles on 19 December 1944, her remains were interred alongside his. She was the last surviving member of her immediate family. She was penniless when she died.
Sid Grauman (Grauman's Theater) and William S. Hart (cowboy actor and long-time friend of Wyatt Earp) paid for her funeral and burial. Although she was never active in her Jewish faith, her service was conducted by a rabbi.
In 1957, the Tombstone Restoration Commission looked for Wyatt's ashes with the goal of having them moved to Tombstone. They contacted family members seeking permission and the location of his ashes, but no one could tell them where Wyatt was buried, not even his closest living relative, George Earp. Arthur King, a deputy to Earp from 1910 to 1912, finally revealed that Josephine had buried Wyatt's cremated remains in Colma, California, and the Tombstone Commission cancelled its plans to relocate his ashes.
On 8 July 1957, thieves excavated the Earp's grave in an apparent attempt to steal his cremated remains, but unable to find them, stole the simple, 600 pounds grave marker. The stone was eventually returned but a new, more elaborate marker was erected later on. Their grave site is the most visited resting place in the Jewish cemetery.
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