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.”

     

Over the years, Annie faded but never disappeared from my mind.  She reappeared slightly in her resemblance to a character in the “True Women” series who gave her horse to an old Indian who had been her enemy in the early years fleeing Santa Ana’s armies.     A few years ago in our weekly California history night movies, Annie reappeared as a member of Buffalo Bill’s traveling Wild West Show.

     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.