Annie Oakley
Annie
Oakley (Phoebe Ann Mozee) was born to Quaker parents in Ohio. She
had six brothers and sisters. When she was six years old her father
died due to exposure to snow and freezing weather. Her mother remarried
and had another child, then became a widow again.
She could not take care of all the children, so she sent Annie to live
on a "poor farm".
From there she was loaned out to work for a family, but they were very
cruel to her. She referred to them as "the wolves". Sometimes they
would lock her out of the house when it was snowing outside. She spent
two agonizing years with them, then returned to the county poor farm.
She was reunited with her mother when she was 15 years old. Her mother
had remarried, but times were still hard for the family. They were
about to lose the farm. Annie taught herself to shoot a gun, and she
became such a good shot she was able to hunt small animals and sell
them. When she had accumulated $200, she gave it to her mother to pay
off the mortgage on the farm.
One of the favorite pastimes of that age was attending
shooting matches. Frank Butler, an Irish immigrant, was one of the
sharpshooters*. A match was made for him to
compete against Annie, a petite*
15-year-old girl who was just 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds.
They each hit 24 birds in a row, then Frank missed his next shot. Annie
successfully made her 25th shot and won the match. Frank was very
attracted to this little girl who had bested him on the shooting range
and offered her tickets to his next show. A romance developed and they
were married in 1876.
Annie took her paternal*
grandmother's name; Annie Oakley, and she and Frank started traveling
together giving shows. Some of the shows were off-color and the women
were scantily dressed, but Annie was not like that. She sewed her own
costumes with skills she had learned at the poor farm, and her costumes
were very modest and covered her completely.
Frank had top billing, but he soon realized Annie was a better
shot than he was and also a better show person. So he stepped aside,
gave her top billing, and became her manager. They took a job with
Sells Brothers Circus and spent 40 weeks traveling with them. The
season ended in New Orleans.
It just happened that Buffalo Bill Cody came to town that
week with his "Wild West Show".
Annie had hoped to join his show, but Cody already had a sharpshooter,
and he turned them down. Later his steamer ship sank and his
sharpshooter lost his guns in the mishap, so Cody agreed to a tryout
with Annie and Frank. Before he even got to see her shoot, his business
manager saw her practicing and was so impressed he hired her on the
spot.
What a show she put on for the crowd! She would throw up glass
balls and shoot them before they fell to the ground. Feathers would fly
from the shattered glass. She could toss up six balls and then shoot
all of them. She could shoot something while looking in a mirror. She
could shoot a playing card turned sideways no less, and split it in
half. She was phenomenal!
Annie was innocent looking, demure*, and
ladylike. The Indian chief Sitting Bull wanted to adopt her as his
daughter. He gave her the name Watanya Cecilia which means Little
Sure Shot.
Cody took his show to London on the Queen Victoria ship filled
with all the animals he used in the show; horses, cattle, and buffalo,
along with all the people who were in the show.
Another woman sharpshooter, Lillian Smith, was touring with them. She
was 15 years old, loud and unrefined. Annie was now 26. She told people
she was younger because she felt she could compete better if she were
nearer Lillian's age. The two women got equal billing.
There were many royal visitors in attendance and the Queen called both
women to her box to meet them.
Competition between the two women was intense. Lillian shot poorly that
day and Annie did well.
It wasn't too long before Annie left the Wild West Show and Buffalo
Bill Cody. When people asked her why she left she replied,"The reason
for so doing would take too long to tell".
Buffalo Bill wanted Annie to go with him to Paris, France, and she went
back with the show. Lillian didn't go. For three years they toured
Europe.
They returned to Chicago where the Columbian Exposition was in
progress in 1893. Buffalo Bill set up his show right next to the
World's Fair and he drew larger crowds than the Exposition.
Thomas Edison had invented the movie camera, and he invited Annie and
Frank to make a test movie with his new camera. It was during this time
when movies began to become popular, that people started going to the
movies instead of the Wild West Show.
In 1891 Annie was injured in a train wreck. Her spine was hurt, and she
was no longer able to do all the things she could previously do. She
left the show.
A play was written for her and she starred in it.
Then in 1903 tragedy entered her life. A burlesque*
actress, trying to capitalize* on Annie's
name, claimed to be Annie Oakley. The woman was accused of theft and
cocaine use. William Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher, printed that
Annie Oakley was in prison because of theft and drug use.
Annie had worked hard for years to have a good reputation, and this
woman by impersonating*
her, was smearing her good name. She had to do everything in her power
to clear her name and show that the report was false. She sued
newspaper after newspaper, 55 in all, and pursued them for six years.
She won 54 of the cases. Hearst paid her $27,000, but she lost money
because the pursuit had been so costly. Hearst hired people to try to
find something in her past they could use against her, but they found
nothing.
Annie performed in a new Wild West Show, but the crowds were
smaller now, and she retired in 1913. She and Frank did an exhibition
show a couple of years before they died.
She taught thousands of women how to shoot, and she thought women
should be able to protect themselves.
Interestingly, she was not in favor of women having the vote, and was
not very politically active. She did believe women should get
equal pay for equal work.
She was involved in a car accident and suffered a broken hip and ankle.
Annie Oakley died at age 66. Some think she may have died of lead
poisoning due to the lead in the bullets she used for years. Frank, her
husband of 50 years, died 18 days later.
A musical called Annie Get Your Gun , the story of her life,
was later produced on Broadway and on film.
Biography at gardenofpraise.com