ANNIE
OAKLEY, MY CHILDHOOD HEROINE
Growing up in the 1950s in Texas [East Texas, not Cowboy
Country] I HAD to watch “Annie Oakley” every Saturday. Remember, these were the days before
VCrs. If you missed it, you missed
it. Once when we went to visit my great
uncle Theodore, my mom bought me paper dolls later ‘for the time you had to
miss Annie Oakley.’
When touring daycare and preschool centers to find a
place for me while momma went back to college, I remember momma introducing me,
“Her name is Kathleen, but she likes to be called Annie Oakley.”
Yesterday we arrived at the spot we’d promised ourselves
to visit, almost changed our minds to stay on the Lincoln, but in the end we
couldn’t pass it up: Greenville, Ohio,
where the Garst History Museum houses a major collection on Annie. Annie grew up in the area, returned whenever
possible, and is buried nearby.
[Greenville itself is a little-known but pivotal point in U.S. history
as a spot with severe battles with the Indians and repeated treaty violations
by the U.S. government. Tecumseh was
involved in striving to unify and save the tribes. Greenville is a little-known but key figure
in our nation’s history – but that’s another story.]
Miss Oakley was indeed a fit figure for a child’s
admiration and role model. Her real-life
story is even more impressive than her famous life as a sharpshooter.
Phoebe Ann Mosey was born in 1860, on the eve of the
Civil War, to Quaker parents from Pennsylvania.
Her father and her stepfather died within the first seven or so years of
her life, leaving her mother impoverished and on a mortgaged farm with seven
children to rear. At the age of seven,
Annie began to support the family with what game she could trap or shoot and
sell.
At nine, Annie and her sister were put into an ‘infirmary’
[an orphanage or work house] where she was taught to sew and decorate; she was
then sent to work for a couple who wanted her to do much harder labor than a
girl would be capable of, abusing her physically and mentally. They once punished her by making her stand in
the snow all night without shoes because she fell asleep while darning. She referred to them as ‘the wolves’ but
never revealed their names to the public.
At 15, Annie met Frank Butler, a sharpshooter
himself. In a contest, Annie
out-performed him. Before long, they
were courting , and were married for 50 years.
Annie died of pernicious anemia at the age of 66, and Frank followed a
couple of weeks later.
Annie was known to read her Bible and pray each
night. The couple prospered
economically, traveling 20 years or so with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show,
where Annie met and was loved like a daughter by Sitting Bull. Annie and Frank never had children, but Annie
affirmed something along the lines of “people
who did well should not just live it up but help take care of those in
need. I’ve never had children, but I
have 19 children who I have never formally adopted, but give money to whenever
it’s needed.”
When not wearing her buckskin performance clothes, Annie
was a stylishly dressed lady. She never
got into housekeeping; she and Frank tried several types of housing styles and
hotels. She said she WANTED to take care
of a house but it just didn’t seem to be in her capabilities.
In short, Annie was a role model and I’d chosen well at
someone to adore as a child. After
touring the museum yesterday, we sought out her grave at a cemetery some 15
miles away. While it’s just an ordinary
tombstone, others had shown their admiration by placing small decorative
stones, coins, or a few flowers on her grave.
With no flowers, seeking inspiration for something meaningful, I dug through a suitcase [while Ron grudgingly
retrieved my Uncle Johnny’s box of ashes from deep storage in the car after
donning his heavy coat] and came out with a beautiful pendant of a cross
surrounded by roses, one of those necklaces I always plan to wear but rarely
do, which has been around for as long as I can remember, and might have
belonged to my grandmother. Knowing it
would never mean much to my non-sentimental children, and wanting to recognize
Annie’s faith and the blessing she had been on this earth, I draped it on the
top of the tombstone as securely as possible, set Uncle Johnny’s box of ashes
at the base, and took a few moments in the cold to pray for the descendants of
the people Annie had helped to raise and told my uncle and my grandmother how
much I had loved them, and we were on our way.
A day well spent, a trip well worth taking, and inspiration to last a
lifetime.
