My Annie Oakley story is listed in my catalog of stories and is a favorite. I have often sort of bragged that I only feature Mississippi stories when I tell, stating that 99% of my stories are about Mississippi people and places.

Well that one percent is my narrative about Annie Oakley.

Because I love her story so much, I really tried to make a Mississippi connection and finally it happened, back in 2008. I will reveal that later in this column, but first let me share with you a bit about Annie’s life, which I uncovered via my research.

No, she wasn’t a Mississippian, not even a southerner but was born in Darke County, Ohio, a rural community near the Indiana state line, on August 13, 1860, as Phoebe Ann (Annie) Mosey. Perhaps I feel a certain comradeship with her because I too have a double name, with Ann as the middle (on my birth certificate) and Annie as my nickname.

It was a tough go for Annie and her entire family once her father died leaving them destitute. There were seven siblings. At age nine, she and her sister were admitted to the Darke County Infirmary (a charity institution) to learn a trade. They were taught to sew, plus the two girls had learned general housekeeping and food preparation from their mother.

Annie was bound out to a local family. She was promised fifty cents a week and help with her education, but the experience was abusive, both mentally and physically. Annie always referred to the family as “the wolves.” She escaped and returned home.

It was still desperate times with her mother and siblings. Annie realized at an early age that she had a good eye and could “out-shoot” her brothers when bagging squirrels and rabbits for the family dinner table. And in order to bring into the household needed monies, she began to sell her game to local shopkeepers and eventually to nearby restaurants and hotels. By age 15, Annie had paid off the mortgage on her mother’s farm.

Word traveled throughout the region about a 15-year-old girl with marksman skills, and eventually Annie was signed to a traveling show which featured shooting matches. In one of the matches, she was pitted against Frank E. Butler, a young man who had made a name for himself, but on this day, a “… five-foot-tall 15 year old girl named Annie,” won the match.

It wasn’t too long until the couple began courting and was married.

She and Frank began performing together and by 1885 had joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Annie was wildly famous, and it was reported she earned more money than any of the performers, with the exception of Buffalo Bill himself.

By this time, Frank was her manager. Annie said “… the financial part is always in my husband’s hands.”

After her death in 1926, it was documented that her immense fortunate “had been spent on family and charities.” Just as a 9-year-old girl when she used her shooting talents to feed the family and pay the farm’s mortgage, when Annie became “America’s first female star,” her first concern was for family and as well as those in need.

I had to have Annie included with my storytelling.

Finally the story came to me. Tradition has stated that Annie and the Wild West Show were in Meridian in the early 1900’s. It was said that someone dared her to shoot an upper window in Hotel Meridian (where the MAX is located today), to shoot the O in Hotel. I drove downtown that very day and witnessed a gunshot hole through the O. I had my connection; although I did not have the date the shot occurred.

But then, well you know, the hotel is no longer there. My piece of Annie Oakley is gone forever, but I can still tell her story. That’s what storytellers do.

So there you have it. Another piece of Meridian history.

 

Anne B McKee is executive director at Meridian Railroad Museum.