Annie Oakley

At 66 years old, Annie Oakley has this physical status:

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter.

Her talent came first when she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married.

A few years later, the couple appeared on Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Oakley is a well-known international celebrity, appearing before kings and heads of state. Oakley was also known as "Miss Annie Oakley," "Little Miss Sure Shot," "Watanya Cicilla," "Phoebe Anne Oakley," "Mrs."

"Mrs. Annie Oakley" is the British singer.

"Mrs. Annie Butler" and "Mrs.

Frank Butler is a fictional character in the film "Frank Butler" by Frank Butler.

"Annie Oakley Butler" is the name on her death certificate.

Early life

Annie Oakley was born in a log cabin less than two miles (3.2 km) northwest of Woodland, Ohio, a rural county along the state's border with Indiana, on August 13, 1860. Her birthplace is about five miles (8 km) east of North Star. In the area of the Annie Oakley Committee's 1981 monument, which was installed by the Annie Oakley Committee 121 years after her birth, there is a stone-mounted plaque.

Annie's parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, USA: Susan Wise, born 1830, and Jacob Mosey, born in 1848, married in 1848. About 1855, the couple purchased a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio.

Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan's nine children and the fifth of the seven remaining members of the group. Mary Jane (1851–1867), Lydia (1852–1882), Elizabeth (1851–1882), Margaret (1851–1939), John (1861–1861), and Catherine (1859–1939) had a married brother in 1865. Annie's father, who had served in the War of 1812, was 61 years old at the time of Annie's birth but died of hypothermia as a result of a drought in late 1865 and died of pneumonia in early 1866 at the age of 66. Emily (1868–1937), her mother, later married Daniel Brumbaugh, and was widowed once more.

Annie did not attend school as a child due to poverty following her father's death, although she did attend later in childhood and adulthood. She and her sister Sarah Ellen were admitted to the Darke County Infirmary on March 15, 1870, at the age of nine. According to her autobiography, she was placed in the custody of the infirmary's superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington, and his partner Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate. She was "bound out" to a local family to help care for their infant son's baby during the fall of 1870, on the false promise of fifty cents a week (equivalent to $11 in 2021) and an education. The couple had originally intended to find someone who could pump water, cook, and who was larger. She spent about two years as an inmate in a virtual slavery situation, suffering mental and physical abuse. Annie was dropped in the freezing cold without shoes one time because she had fallen asleep over some darning. They were described as "the wolves" by Annie. She never told the couple's real names in her autobiography.

According to biographer Glenda Riley, "the wolves" may have been the Studabaker family, but the Abram Boose family of neighboring Preble County may have been identified as the Abram Boose family. Annie ran away from "the wolves" in the spring of 1872. Annie was only at this time that she met and lived with the Edingtons, returning to her mother's house around the age of 15.

Annie started trapping before the age of seven, as well as shooting and hunting by age eight, to help her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game to locals in Greenville, including shopkeepers Charles and G. Anthony Katzenberger, who then delivered it to hotels in Cincinnati and other cities. In northern Ohio, she also sold the game to restaurants and hotels. When Annie was 15, her talent paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm.

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Career and touring

Annie and Frank Butler lived in Cincinnati for a time. Oakley, the stage name she adopted when she and Frank began performing together, is believed to have been taken from the city's neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. Some people believe she took on the name because that was the name of the man who had paid her train fare when she was a child.

They joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1885. At five feet tall, Oakley was given the nickname of "Watanya Cicilla" by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered "Little Sure Shot" in the public advertisements.

During her first engagement with the Buffalo Bill show, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Smith was eleven years younger than Oakley, age 15 at the time she joined the show in 1886, which may have been a primary reason for Oakley to alter her actual age in later years due to Smith's press coverage becoming as favorable as hers. Oakley temporarily left the Buffalo Bill show but returned two years later, after Smith departed, in time for the Paris Exposition of 1889. This three-year tour only cemented Oakley as America's first female star. She earned more than any other performer in the show, except for Buffalo Bill himself. She also performed in many shows on the side for extra income.

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Umberto I of Italy, President Marie François Sadi Carnot of France and other crowned heads of state. Oakley supposedly shot the ashes off a cigarette held by the newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II at his request.

From 1892 to 1904, Oakley and Butler made their home in Nutley, New Jersey.

Oakley promoted the service of women in combat operations for the United States armed forces. She wrote a letter to President William McKinley on April 5, 1898, "offering the government the services of a company of 50 'lady sharpshooters' who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain."

The Spanish–American War did occur, but Oakley's offer was not accepted. Theodore Roosevelt, did, however, name his volunteer cavalry the "Rough Riders" after the "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World" where Oakley was a major star.

In 1901 (the same year as McKinley's assassination), Oakley was badly injured in a train accident but recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She left the Buffalo Bill show and in 1902 began a less taxing acting career in a stage play written especially for her, The Western Girl. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry who used a pistol, a rifle and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught more than 15,000 women how to use a gun. Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves. She said: "I would like to see every woman know how to handle guns, as naturally as they know how to handle babies."

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