ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

The most famous female sharpshooter in the history of this country was Annie Oakley (her name at birth was Phoebe Ann Mosey).  She was born in a log cabin in Darke County, Ohio, about 50 miles north and a little west of Cincinnati.  Her parents were Quakers.

Annie's father died when she was six.  She started trapping and shooting game by the age of eight. By the time she was a teenager, she was supporting her family by selling the game she killed to hotel restaurants in Greenville and Cincinnati.

In 1881, Frank Butler, a traveling show rifle marksman was in Cincinnati betting he could out-shoot anyone in the area.  A local hotelier, Jack Frost, brought in Annie, then a slightly built 21 year-old barely five foot tall, to face him.  Of course, she won.  Well, maybe Frank won.  She stayed in town, got chummy with Frank and they were married a year later.  She went on the traveling show circuit with her husband and chose the stage name of Annie Oakley because that is the neighborhood in Cincinnati (Oakley) in which they lived.  (The city got its name from its many oak trees.)

They toured the country and world in the later part of the 19th century.  She performed before heads of state in America, England, France, Italy and Spain.  She offered to fight in both the Spanish-American War and World War I, but was turned down.

In 1926, Frank Butler and Annie Oakley celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary.  That year, they both died of natural causes less than three weeks apart; Frank on November 3 and Annie on November 21.

Books, stage plays and films have been dedicated to recounting her life story.  "Annie Get Your Gun" is the famous musical based on a book by Dorothy and Herbert Fields.  Irving Berlin authored the music and lyrics. From that play comes the songs; "There's No Business Like Show Business", "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly",  "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun",  "They Say it's Wonderful", and "Anything You Can Do", and  "The Girl that I Marry".  .

It all started in Cincinnati . . .
O_O