Woman Who Pulls Teeth--Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor, by Tanya Hanson

We all know everybody’s favorite huckleberry Doc Holliday was a dentist, but it was a baby girl, born Lucy Beaman Hobbs on March 14, 1833, in Constable, New York, who changed dental history.

At a time when a woman’s chief role was that of wife/mother/homemaker, Lucy’s only other choices were schoolmarm or nurse, proper but “spinsterish” occupations. But even as a little girl, Lucy Beaman Hobbs longed for the unexpected.

However, she caved a little bit, spending ten years in a Michigan classroom. But she always held tight to her dream of pursuing medical science.

Solely on the basis of her gender, the Eclectic College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio rejected her in 1859. Nevertheless, one of the school’s professors gave her private lessons, and at his suggestion, she turned her interest to dentistry.

Again due to her gender, she could only pursue her dental studies as a private pupil. Fortunately, the dean of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery also took her under his wing. Later, she apprenticed herself to a graduate of the school. Again denied admission to the dental college --because of her gender -- she started her own practice in Cincinnati in the spring of 1861 when she was 28.

She later moved her practice to Bellevue, Iowa (1862) and thence to McGregor, Iowa (1862-1865). In time, she came to be known by what sounds a bit like a Native American soubriquet: "the woman who pulls teeth."

Interestingly, the Iowa State Dental Society accepted Lucy as a member in July 1865. Affirming that she had proven herself a worthy equal to male colleagues, the Society sent her as a delegate to the American Dental Association convention in Chicago that year. In November 1865, four years into her own dental practice, she was at last admitted to the senior class of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.

Due to her expertise as well as support from a small but devoted group of admirers, she earned her degree only a few months later, on February 21, 1866. Thus Lucy Hobbs became the first woman in the U.S. –and likely the world-- to earn a doctorate in dentistry.

While practicing in Chicago, she met Civil War veteran James M. Taylor, and married the railway maintenance worker in April 1867. Under his wife's guidance, James too became a dentist.

Late in 1867, the Doctors Taylor moved to the western town of Lawrence, Kansas, where they soon built a successful practice, focusing on women and children. Most patients referred to the highly-regarded dentist as “Dr Lucy.” After James’ death in 1886, she retired from most of her professional duties. However, she remained active in civic and political causes, most importantly the woman's suffrage movement.

Peers and citizens alike hailed her as a pioneer in opening the doors for more women in dentistry. By 1900, almost one thousand women were taking part in the profession.

During her career in Kansas, Dr. Taylor wrote, "I am a New Yorker by birth, but I love my adopted country -- the West. To it belongs the credit of making it possible for women to be recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men."

This courageous, determined woman died in Lawrence on October 3, 1910 at the age of 77. In her obituary, she was recognized as "one of the most striking figures of Lawrence [who] occupied a position of honor and ability, and for years she occupied a place high in the ranks of her profession."

www.tanyahanson.com

Coming soon: Book Five, Hearts Crossing Ranch series~Soul Food

Avis and Effie Hotchkiss: Motorcycle Mama

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

Effie Hotchkiss was not your average Victorian era girl—she had dreams, big dreams and though she didn’t intend it, her dreams landed her on the front page of newspapers across America and her name was etched into history books.  The year was 1915 and Effie was already bored with her bank clerking job on Wall Street in New York City.  She wanted to do something exciting and adventurous.  She wanted to see America. And she wanted to do them both at the same time.

Although the one millionth Ford Model T had just rolled off the assembly line, or perhaps in spite of it, Effie didn’t want to see the USA in a Chev….er, Ford.  She wanted to cross the country, from sea to shining sea, on a motorcycle.

In the early part of the 20^th century, much of the U.S. especially in the West, was still wild frontier, full of bandits and Indians, not to mention wildlife. In addition, what roads existed were narrow, potholed, and mostly dirt. These hazards did not deter Effie.  Using a small inheritance, she purchased a V-Twin Harley-Davidson and planned out her trip. Her mother, Avis, however was not as enthused as Effie about a woman taking such a trip alone. Instead of preventing her daughter from going, Avis insisted on tagging along.

A sidecar was rigged to the bike and the mother-daughter duo left Brooklyn, NY on May 2, 1915 to attend the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.  They spent the next two months traveling 5,000 miles through every type of terrain and weather imaginable.  At one time, the temperature ranged from freezing to over 120° in a matter of days.

Effie not only did the driving, she was the mechanic, too, since she had to repair the cycle in remote places.  When the duo ran out of inner tubes for the tires, they improvised by taking a blanket, cutting it up, tightly rolling it and stuffing it into the tire. It got them to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they were able to purchase new tubes.

The September 1915 issue of Harley-Davidson Dealer’s Magazine wrote that the women faced “bad roads, heat, cold, rain, floods and other such things with a shrug of their shoulders.”

Once on the west coast Effie dipped her toes and tires in the Pacific Ocean.  She also ran down her future husband on a San Francisco street when he stepped out in front of her moving motorcycle.

Barely taking time to catch their breaths, Effie and Avis headed back to Brooklyn, arriving in October 1915.  They’d racked up 9,000 miles round trip and cruised through Reno, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Chicago, Milwaukee and dozens of other cities.

Whether intended or not, Effie and Avis did make the news and were celebrities by the time they returned home. They were also the first women to not only make a cross-country trip on a motorcycle, but the first to make it round trip. Effie remarked, “I just wanted to see America and considered that the three-speed Harley-Davidson for myself and sidecar for mother and luggage was the best suited for the job.”

References:

LADIES FIRST: History’s Greatest Female Trailblazers, Winners and Mavericks by Lynn Santa Lucia

http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Content/Pages/women-riders/female-trailblazers.html 3/4/12

www.cycleconnection.com 2/27/12

Anna Kathryn Lanier
www.aklanier.com http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/ 

Never let your memories be greater than your dreams. ~Doug Ivester 

Dr. Bethenia Owens-Adair.

By Paty Jager

I came across Bethenia Owens-Adair when I was researching female doctors for my book Doctor in Petticoats. I needed accounts of female doctors in the 1800’s. Bethenia stuck out in my memory because of not only being a female doctor in a time when there were few, but she was also a divorced woman and one who had overcome many hardships to fulfill her dream.

In 1859 she married LeGrand Hill in Roseburg, Oregon at the age of fourteen.  By sixteen she’d given birth to her only child and became a divorced woman at the age of nineteen.

A quote from her autobiography, Dr. Owens-Adair; Some of Her Life Experiences (1906) “I was, indeed, surrounded with difficulties seemingly insurmountable, __a husband for whom I had lost all love and respect, a divorce, the stigma of which would cling to me all my future life, and a sickly babe I my arms, all rose darkly before me.”

Her greatest assets were her innate optimism, stamina, and her refusal to be a victim.  Her courage to leave an abusive marriage, provided for herself and her son and gain an education to become one of the first women to practice medicine in Oregon has made her an icon of many women over the years.

Most of her life was spent in the Pacific Northwest, but she was born in Van Buren County, Missouri, the second of nine children. When she was three, her family migrated to Oregon Country. They first settled in the Clatsop Plains in 1843 and later moved to the Umpqua Valley across the river from Roseburg.

Bethenia was small- 5 feet 4 inches. She’d always wished to be a boy and until the age of twenty-five would not be outdone by her brother in wrestling or feats of strength. “…I realized early in life that a girl was hampered and hemmed in on all sides simply by the accident of sex” She was one of the first women libbers.

When a man took liberties when she was thirteen and washing clothes she used the long broom handle she was stirring the wash with and beat him until her mother pulled her off. Her words to the man, “You little skunk, if you ever dare to come near me again, I’ll kill you”

But she was not immune to men and being wooed. She married LeGrand Hill, one of her father’s farmhands. He turned out to prefer hunting and reading to working and after the divorce when asked why she left her husband Bethenia said “ Because he whipped my baby unmercifully and struck and choked me,—and I was never born to be struck by mortal man”

When she divorced Bethenia knew she’d be protected by her parents but she was an independent woman and was determined to provide for herself and George, her son.  She reclaimed her maiden name and worked washing clothes, sewing, and taught school so she could complete her education. She moved around but ended up back in Roseburg in 1867 and started up a successful dressmaking and millinery business for six years.

This is where she became involved with the temperance and woman suffrage causes. She was a friend of Abigail Scott Duniway and became a subscription agent and regular contributor to Duniway’s woman’s rights newspaper the New Northwest located in Portland, Oregon.

After her son attended college Bethenia entered medical school. She enjoyed nursing the sick. There were only a few options for a woman to enter a medical school. She was admitted to Eclectic Medical College in Philadelphia. The institution trained sectarian practitioners as homeopaths, hydropaths, and eclectics. When she told family and friends of her enrollment they were strongly opposed. Women weren’t doctors!

While her family, including her own son, opposed her becoming a doctor, her dear friends Jesse Applegate, an early Oregon pioneer encouraged Bethenia to study medicine.  In 1873, she arranged for George to board with Duniway and work on her newspaper, and then Bethenia headed east. A year later she returned with her medical degree and opened an office in Portland.  She specialized in care of women and children.

In the fall of 1878 she enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Medical School. Even her dear friend Jesse Applegate thought it was foolish to leave a profitable practice to return to school.

But Bethenia wanted a medical degree from a reputable institution. She received that degree in 1880 at the age of forty. She then spent that summer of clinical and hospital work in Chicago and did postgraduate work at Michigan and toured European hospitals.  She returned to Portland and her new specialty was diseases of the eyes and ears with the majority of her patients still being women and children.

She married Col. John Adair, a graduate of West Point, in 1884. She birthed a child three years later at the age of forty-seven but he child only lived three days. They adopted two boys and lived on a farm near Astoria for eleven years where Bethenia had a general practice as a country doctor.

By 1899 rheumatism drove Bethenia to a better climate, She and her husband moved to North Yakima, Washington where her son, George, was practicing medicine. Bethenia retired in 1905 and the next year her autobiography was published. Her husband died in 1915 and she followed him September 11, 1926 at the age of eighty-six.

Bethenia Owens-Adair was a testament to what a woman can attain if she has a mind to. Every time I read her story it makes me proud to know there were women before me who stuck to their guns and went against society to better themselves.

www.patyjager.net

www.patyjager.blogspot.com

Sources:

Pacific Northwest Women 1815-1925 by Jean M. Ward & Elaine A. Maveety

Dr. Owens-Adair; Some of Her Life Experiences (1906) by Dr. Owens-Adair

Ten Tidbits About My New Novel

By Stacey Coverstone

As an author, I’m often asked if I base my characters on real people, or if the things that take place in my books have happened to me or to people I know.  Usually, my answer is no.  However, such is not the case in my latest western romance. 

This book is titled BIG SKY and it’s a contemporary romance set on a ranch in Montana, and it includes some paranormal elements (read Ghost). Although I don’t live on a ranch, or in Montana, I have had an experience with a poltergeist. But the similarities between my real life and this book don’t stop there.  For this story, I’ve used several events from my life as inspiration for plot points, as well as featuring my pets as characters and naming several characters after friends and family.  I thought it might be fun to share a few tid-bits in this regard.

*Stacey will give away an electronic copy to one visitor--don't forget to leave a comment!*

1.  The fictional town of Prosperity is based on the town of Butte, Montana, where my author friend, Melissa Blue, lives.  She often talks about how beautiful that area is, which is why I decided to set my story there.

2.  A few of my animals are characters in this book.  My husband’s paint horse, Bill, is the hero’s horse. However, one difference between the real Bill and the fictionalized Bill is that our horse is not sensitive to spurs.  My former Haflinger mare, Dusty, also shows up as one of the horses the heroine, Taylor, rides. And when I decided to give Brett, the hero, a pet, my gray cat, Caesar, seemed perfect for the job. 

3.  The owner of the western store where Taylor and Brett shop is Mrs. Kruse, my aunt, who is very supportive of my writing.

 4.  The cowboy bar in my story called Maverick’s is based on an actual cowboy bar in Jacksonville, Florida that I went to with six of my friends during a girlfriend vacation.

 5.  The scene where Taylor rides a mechanical bull was inspired by my real-life experience in riding a mechanical bull for the first (and last) time.  My adventure took place, incidentally, at the cowboy bar mentioned above when I was 51 years old.

6.  The pony my heroine had as a child was called Tony, much like my husband’s pony when he was a boy.

 7.  The scene where Taylor gets thrown from her horse and knocked unconscious is based on a real-life incident that happened to me. However, the animals involved are not the same.

 8.  Two female characters, the hero’s ex-wife and the nurse for Taylor’s mother, were given the names of my daughters.  When I began this story, my youngest daughter asked why I hadn’t put her and her sister in a book yet, so I did. Hopefully, they won’t be able to relate to the characters. (You’ll have to read the book to see what I mean).

 9.  A music professor who is a friend asked me if I was going to put him in a story someday, so I made him one of the wranglers at the Slash Y Ranch.  When I recently told him he’s a cowboy now, he got very excited.

 10.  Models for the characters in this story are actors Timothy Olyphant, Jamie Anne Allman, Rachel McAdams, Adam Beach and A. Martinez. If you read my book, drop me an email and give me your guesses on who is who.

 Here’s the blurb for BIG SKY:

 Taylor never expected her reluctant homecoming to include a murder, a ghost…and a hunk of a ranch foreman. 

Photographer Taylor Young fled to L.A. following her sister’s betrayal six years ago. Now Jamie’s dead, Mama has broken a hip in a drunken fall, and Taylor’s stepfather begs her to return to her family’s Montana ranch to make amends.

After a bitter divorce, Brett Austin, foreman of the Slash Y Ranch, believes horses are more of a sure thing than women. But the boss's daughter changes all that when she sets his heart bucking like a wild bronc.  


 When Taylor’s mother insists Jamie’s death was not suicide—a theory confirmed by Jamie’s ghost—Taylor wonders who could have wanted her sister dead. With a list of suspects as long as her camera strap, Taylor needs an ally. Could that person be a tall drink of water in a cowboy hat?~*~*~*~

 And here’s a short excerpt for you:

“Don’t you have some cattle to rustle up? Or fences to mend?” Taylor slammed her foot on the gas pedal and rubbed her throbbing temples.
“You’re not going to get that vehicle started,” Brett stated. “It needs to sit. Hop on back.” He patted the horse’s rump. There was a mischievous twinkle in the horse’s eye.
“Thanks. But I’m not going to ride on the back of that animal with you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know you or that paint.”
Brett shrugged. “Will’s not going to like it if I leave you stranded.”
“I’m hardly stranded. The car will start soon. Or I’ll walk.”
He flicked the reins. “Giddy-up, Bill.” With a cluck of Brett’s tongue, the horse took up a slow trot.
Taylor peered through the windshield and watched the man’s body sway in rhythm with his gelding’s gait. He knew how to sit a horse. But what did he know about cars? He might understand as much about vehicles as her—which was next to nothing. She could be waiting here for an hour.
She glanced down at her heels wishing she had on more sensible shoes. Walking a mile down a hard-packed dirt road would destroy them—and her feet.
Darn. Perhaps she should reconsider the cowboy’s offer.
Taylor flung the car door open and jumped out. Planting her feet apart, she placed two fingers between her lips and whistled.
Brett told Bill to whoa and tossed his hand over the saddle horn. His and Taylor’s gazes locked. His intense stare burned a hole into her. Her head angled in question. Suddenly, she felt as if her slacks were made of see-through paper. When he lifted his hand and waved her forward, she narrowed her eyes at his cocksure grin.
~*~*~*~
Thanks for stopping by.
Stacey
http://www.staceycoverstone.com

BIG SKY Available Now in Print, Ebook and Kindle

http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=175_141&products_id=4755

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Sky-ebook/dp/B0077PU70O/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1331237794&sr=1-3

Belle Starr

By Kathy Otten

While researching hotels for the hero and heroine of Lost Hearts to stay, I discovered the Elk House, in McAlester, Indian Territory. This popular hotel was one of the businesses started by Ed Sittle and his family, immigrants from Germany.

Inside was a piano that was played by the famous female outlaw, Belle Starr, whenever she was a guest. She was a gifted pianist who learned to play the piano while she was a young girl attending the Carthage Academy for young ladies, in Carthage, MO.  There she learned arithmetic and algebra and excelled in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

While smart and talented, Belle was not a pretty girl. Known as “The Lady Desperado,” “The Bandit Queen,” and the Petticoat Terror of the Plains,” Belle was considered a trollop and attracted to some of the worst “bad boys of her time.”

Myra Belle Shirley was born February 5, 1848, to a well-off family in Washington County, AK.  After Myra’s brother was killed in the Civil War, the family moved to Scyene, TX. There Myra met the ex-Quantrill guerilla, Coleman Younger.

When Myra was twenty she became reacquainted with an old childhood sweetheart from Carthage, James Reed, who ran with the infamous Tom Starr. After a pregnancy and a quick marriage, Myra raised their daughter while Reed rode with Tom Starr. During this time Reed killed a man named Shannon, which forced him to take his family to CA.  Reed provided for his family by committing highway robberies and Myra gave birth to a son in 1871.

To avoid arrest for stage robbery the family moved back to Scyene where they opened a livery. Myra tended the business, leaving James to steal horses in Indian Territory. In 1874, James was killed by Deputy Sheriff J.T. Morris near Paris, TX.

Myra sold the livery, left her children with relatives and headed to Dallas, where she worked as a Faro dealer and became acquainted with Jesse James. In 1877, Myra moved north to Galena, KS and became the common law wife of a gambler named Bruce Younger, who was a cousin of Cole.

In 1880 she married Tom Starr’s son, Sam. They moved to Sam’s ranch near Eufaula in Indian Territory and they named the ranch Younger Bend. It became something of a robbers’ roost for stock thieves and killers to hideout from the law.

At one time there was a reward posted, of ten thousand dollars in gold for Sam and Belle Starr, dead or alive. They were arrested by Deputy United States Marshals and brought before the “Hanging Judge,” Isaac Parker. They received light sentences and were back at their ranch in the fall of 1883.

Once home Belle became involved with a twenty-three year old outlaw who frequented the ranch, a man named Blue Duck. After Blue Duck ended up in the state penitentiary in 1886, Belle began a new relationship with John Middleton, who was wanted for the murder of Sheriff J.H. Black. Before she and Middleton could leave the ranch, Middleton was found dead a few miles south, from a shot gun blast to his face.

Then in December 1886, Sam Starr was shot in a dance hall brawl. In 1888, Belle took up with one of Tom Starr’s nephew’s, Jim July. In 1889 Belle convinced July to turn himself in. She accompanied him as far as San Bois. July continued alone to Fort Smith and Belle headed back to Younger Bend.

A shot gun blast threw Belle from her horse and left her dying by the side of the road. The name of her killer is unknown and she was buried in the yard of Younger Bend.

The piano is now in the home of a direct descendent of Ed Sittle, the owner of Elk House where Belle once played it so beautifully.

Nancy Ward, Cherokee Woman, Advocate & Patriot

by Amber Leigh Williams

Since it’s Women’s History Month, I thought I would write about an influential woman of the American West who undoubtedly changed the way of life for her fellow Native Americans and who was a pioneer of women of her time. No one in the Cherokee Nation was more of an advocate for women’s rights, peace, and a better quality of life for her people than the Cherokee woman Nanyehi, also known as Nancy Ward. Nanyehi was born in 1738 as a member of the Wolf Clan in Chota, a historic Cherokee site in Monroe County, Tennessee. Perhaps her desire for peace between the Cherokee and their European-Americans neighbors was passed down from her parents. Her mother was a Native American woman and her father a white man who had ingratiated himself into the Cherokee Nation and lived among her mother’s people. Nanyehi eventually married a Cherokee man named Kingfisher. By the time she was seventeen, they had two children, a girl – Catherine – and a boy – Littlefellow Fivekiller.

Like several Native American women, Nanyehi was a warrior who fought alongside the men of her tribe. During the Battle of Taliwa, she and Kingfisher fought together against the Creeks in 1755. Unfortunately, both he and her father were killed. To avenge their deaths, she famously took up her husband’s rifle and led her tribe to victory. This act brought her much respect from her fellow Cherokee. It was then that she became a Ghigau at the age of eighteen. For those who don’t know, Ghigau was a title meaning “Beloved Woman” in the Cherokee Nation. It gave Nanyehi the power to sit in councils and extend pardons to captives.

At this time, Nanyehi chose to become more widely known as Nancy Ward when she married for a second time to Bryant Ward of South Carolina. Bryant was a colonist and Indian trader with whom she had a daughter, her third child, named Elizabeth (who later became the wife of General Joseph Martin). Around this time, the Revolutionary War was in full swing. Nancy gained praise again, this time from the white colonists, by warning them of her Cherokee cousin’s plan to attack their settlement. The colonists rewarded her by naming her a Patriot for the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

 In 1776, Nancy chose to use her powers as a Ghigau to give a captive by the name of Lydia Bean pardon. Lydia became a captive of Nancy’s tribe after suffering injuries during the Cherokee attack on Fort Watauga. After taking Lydia into her home and treating her battle injuries, the two became close friends. It was under the influence of Lydia Bean that Nancy began to improve the everyday life of Cherokee woman. By first teaching Nancy a different loom-weaving technique, the garments the Cherokees wore saw improvement and no longer had to be bought from traders but made from their own homes. Not to mention, this new technique kept Cherokee women out of the fields. Before they began weaving, a woman’s job was traditionally to do the planting. In this way, both Lydia and Nancy revolutionized the role of Cherokee women. In addition, Lydia and Nancy began to shift the Cherokee way of life toward the better. Lydia gave to Nancy two dairy cows and taught her to raise cattle. By eating dairy products, the Cherokee could sustain themselves during a poor hunting season. Through these new ways of life both for Cherokee men and women, their society as a whole began to mirror that of the European-American settlements. This new way of life called for more labor, however, and many of them began to use chattel slaves. In fact, Nancy was one of the first Cherokee people to purchase slaves.

When the Cherokee territory began to shrink, Nancy decided to use her established position as a Ghigau and Patriot for the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution to fight against the sale of her tribe’s lands. By doing so, she became known as a de facto ambassador for her people. She led the Women’s Council against the sale of Cherokee land in 1808 and 1817. Despite their best efforts, the land was lost to the whites’ growing demand for new settlements.

In 1781, she traveled with the Cherokee to use her position as an ambassador when they met an American delegation led by a man named John Sevier. While Sevier scorned the fact that the Cherokee had brought a woman along to act as an important diplomat, Nancy argued that the American delegation should have invited at least one woman to act as their negotiator, making a moving speech that impressed the delegation and lives on in history:

"You know that women are always looked upon as nothing; but we are your mothers; you are our sons. Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women's sons be ours; our sons be yours. Let your women hear our words."

Not until modern times was a Native American woman’s speech more noteworthy for its advocacy of women’s rights. Nancy’s is most touching because it shows that she believed in the rights of women of both races.

As Nancy Ward grew older, she settled down in southeastern Tennessee. On what was then called the Ocowee River, she opened an inn, which she ran alongside her son until she passed away in 1822 or 1824. It’s probably a good thing she did not live to see the Trail of Tears, which removed the Cherokee people from the lands she fought so hard to preserve for them. Her son, Fivekiller, was later buried with her on a hilltop site just south of what is now known as Benton, Tennessee. A statue of Nancy stood for seventy years in a Grainger County cemetery until it was stolen in the 1980’s. In 1923, the Daughter of the American Revolution posthumously awarded Nancy Ward with her own chapter based in Chattanooga. The chapter decided to place a memorial marker at Nancy’s gravesite and is now raising money for a Nancy Ward Museum. Until the time that the museum is built, the Polk County Historical and Genealogical Society will maintain a Nancy Ward Room in their genealogy library. Nancy Ward was also the last woman to be bestowed with the title of Beloved Woman of the Cherokee Nation until the 1980’s. The city of Vonore, Tennessee celebrates her life achievements each year with Nancy Ward Cherokee Heritage Days.

Annie Oakley

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee was born August 13, 1860 in Patterson Township, Darke County, Ohio. Even though her mother named her Phoebe Ann her sisters called her Annie. She took the stage name Oakley, reportedly after Oakley, Ohio.

Her parents, Jacob and Susan, were Quakers originally from Pennsylvania. After a tavern fire ended their livelihood as innkeepers, they rented a farm in Ohio. Jacob, who had fought in the War of 1812, died in 1866 from pneumonia and overexposure in freezing weather. Annie was the fifth of seven children. Her mother remarried, had another child and was widowed a second time. During this time Annie was put in the care of the superintendent of the county poor farm, where she learned to embroider and sew, but never attended school. She spent time in near servitude for a local family where she met with mental and physical abuse. When she reunited with her family, her mother had married a third time.

Born in a log cabin on the Ohio frontier, Annie Oakley began shooting game at age nine to support her widowed mother and siblings. She quickly proved to be a dead shot and word spread so much that at age sixteen, Annie went to Cincinnati to enter a shooting contest with Frank E. Butler (1850-1926), an accomplished marksman who performed in vaudeville. Annie won the match by one point and Frank Butler's heart as well. They were married and she became his assistant in his traveling shooting act. Frank recognized that Annie was far more talented and relinquished the limelight to her, becoming her assistant and personal manager. In 1885 they joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, run by the legendary frontiersman and showman Buffalo Bill Cody.

Whether it be a pistol, rifle, or shotgun, Annie Oakley was masterful with them all. Dubbed "Little Sure Shot" by Chief Sitting Bull (she was 5 feet tall), her sharp shooting in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show won her many awards and captivated audiences far and wide. Her name remains synonymous with firearms and entertainment.

For seventeen years Annie Oakley was the Wild West Show's star attraction with her marvelous shooting feats. At 90 feet Annie could shoot a dime tossed in midair. In one day with a .22 rifle she shot 4,472 of 5,000 glass balls tossed in midair. With the thin edge of a playing card facing her at 90 feet, Annie could hit the card and puncture it with five or six more shots as it settled to the ground. Shooting the ashes off a cigarette held in Frank's mouth was part of the Butler and Oakley act. In a celebrated event while touring in Europe, Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Germany, invited Annie to shoot a cigarette held in his own lips. Annie had Wilhelm hold the cigarette in his hand and not his mouth; she accomplished this challenge, as always effortlessly. In this period Annie Oakley was easily recognizable by the numerous shooting medals that adorned her chest.

In a train wreck in 1901, Annie suffered a spinal injury that required five operations and even left her partially paralyzed for a while. Although she recovered very well, Annie toured less frequently during the latter part of her career. Nonetheless, her shooting expertise did not wane and she continued to set records. In a shooting contest in Pinehurst, N.C. in 1922, sixty-two-year-old Annie hit 100 clay targets straight from the 16 yard mark.

Annie Oakley died of pernicious anemia on Nov. 3, 1926, in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of sixty-six. A legend in her own time, the remarkable life of Annie Oakley would be celebrated in the 1946 Herbert and Dorothy Fields musical Annie Get Your Gun.

In her life, Annie overcame poverty, mistreatment and physical injury with her determination and strength of character. She played a role in breaking barriers for women with her talent and accomplishments in her sport. She showed great compassion and generosity to orphans, widows and other young women.

Information taken from Women in History. Annie Oakley biography.