The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley Read Online Free PDF

of John Graham. Other evidence indicates that in 1882 Annie began appearing with Frank, in which case she would have joined him on the stage almost immediately after their marriage if it occurred in 1882.
Whether Annie married in 1876 or 1882, her life has a gap of six unexplained years. Did Annie, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one, live at home with her family as a single woman? If so, did she allow neighborhood men to court her, or did she reject the idea of men and marriage until Frank appeared on her horizon? Or was she already a married woman who waited for her husband to return from his theater engagements?
In any case, Annie very likely became restive with the passive, waiting role assigned to women during the late nineteenth century. She probably also longed to escape a life of minimum comforts and little excitement. Certainly, her actions after 1882 suggest that both these suppositions are valid. Annie gradually adopted as a personal cause the need to revise prevailing ideas regarding women in shooting and in show business. She also worked hard to earn and save income that would provide more than a minimum
     

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standard of living. And, as often as she tried, she could never sacrifice the excitement of a life lived in many different locales.
Whatever the correct date of their shooting match and subsequent wedding, it is clear that Annie made a dramatic life choice when she agreed to marry Frank. Although men had not proved stable figures in her girlhood, she entrusted her future to a man. Perhaps Annie saw Frank as the reliable, long-lived father she had never experienced, or possibly Annie already recognized that she was capable and willing to carry a great deal of responsibility for her own livelihood. In addition, Annie separated herself from the women of her family, whom she could now visit only at intervals. Here her childhood experiences stood her in good stead; she had already learned how to succor herself from only intermittent times at home.
In marrying Frank, Annie also repressed her own fear of poverty. Clearly, Frank and Annie owned little when they married. According to one story, Frank brought fifteen hundred dollars in debts to the marriage. If true, neither Frank nor Annie mentioned the fact. To improve their financial situation, Frank continued to play on the stage while Annie reportedly stayed home with Susan or, according to another version, attended school in Pennsylvania, where she studied reading and writing to improve her still-inadequate skills, a lack that would bother her the rest of her life. In 1881, Frank joined the Sells Brothers Circus, where, according to a poster, he appeared along with "sixty tons of animal actors, a whole herd of learned elephants, and a caravan of educated camels." The following year he returned to the stage.
On May 1, 1882, Frank and his partner were scheduled to appear in the Crystal Hall in Springfield, Ohio. When Frank's partner fell ill before the performance, Frank, or perhaps Annie, suggested that she assist him during the act. "I went on," Annie explained, "with Mr. B. to hold the objects as he shot, [so] he thought. But I rebelled." She insisted on taking every other shot. That inaugural performance led to their touring the vaudeville circuit. In private life, Annie used the name Butler, but when she joined Frank on the stage, she chose Oakley as her professional name. She may have simply picked out a name with a firm ring. Like her choice of Frank as a husband, her choice of a name
     

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proved fortunate. "Annie Oakley" provided a solid base on which to build a career. And that is just what Phoebe Ann(ie) Mosey Moses Mozee Butler Oakley proceeded to do.
"Our first act," she recalled, "received a generous reception." Frank shot first, then Annie. To win over the audience, she often missed on her first try, then succeeded on the second shot. George worked with them; he jumped on a table and leaned his head against a target. After Frank