Annie Oakley's Early Life

Kayla

I choose to write about Annie Oakley’s early life because it seemed pretty interesting to me. Actually when I first started looking her up she really seem that fascinating. But as I researched more and found more information her life became more interesting, especially her early life.
Her life started off on August 13, 1860 in a small cabin just near the border of Ohio. It is now called Darke County but back then it was known as Woodland. The village were the cabin was located is about five miles east of Northstar. The village now has a plaque telling were she was born. It was mounted one hundred and twenty one years after her birth. But the funny thing is that the committee that made the plaque incorrectly spelled her name! Obviously they did not do much research.
Her parents were Quakers in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania which is in Blair County. Their names were Susan Wise and Jacob Mosey and they were married in 1848, twelve years before she was born. A fire burned down their house so they rented a farm. That move was sometime in between Annie’s sisters Sarah Ellen and Phoebe Ann’s birth. The farm was located in the Patterson Township in Darke County. Jacob soon died though during the War of 1812 from overexposure to freezing weather and pneumonia. Her mother soon remarried to Daniel Brumbaugh they had one child together then he died too. Then Annie was sent to live with a superintendent poor on a farm. There she learned how to take care of a home. She spent some of her time with a local family were she was mentally and physically abused. She used to refer to that family as “the wolves”. Finally she went back home to find that her mother had remarried a third time to a man named Joseph Shaw.
Since her family was so poor, Annie did not attend school much after the death of her father. Later she got a little education about spelling and other disciplines. She began hunting at nine so she could help support her family. She would teach the locals how to hunt for extra money. Eventually, she had enough money saved up to pay off the mortgage of her mother’s house. This benefited her family a lot thanks to her.
At this time Annie went to town and signed up for a shooting match. She her opponent was a man named Frank E. Butler. Then a few years later Annie and Frank end up getting married. He then became her manager and they both get hired by Buffalo Bill to be in his Wild West Show. They were hired in the year 1885 and were the stars of that show for seventeen more. Thanks to the help of her publicist Nate Salsbury and of course Annie’s wonderful shooting eye. Annie was in a train wreck in 1901 that paralyzed her for quite sometime.
Annie Oakley developed a very strong character through her early life. So she was obviously really strong mentally and physically to have overcome some of the hardships that she had. This is because to have a powerful character is a hard thing to obtain.
She got a lot of her mental strength from her abuse as a child. I have never been abused but I can only imagine what a tough time that was for her. Her mother sent her away as if she did not even want her. She was all alone with this family that she had never even met. Then that family both physically and mentally abused her. That was one of the hardest times in her life. Because she was alone and felt unwanted.
She got a lot of her physical strength probably from sharp shooting of course. She had to learn how to do this so she could support her family during their time of poverty and need. So she most likely felt a huge burden on her back of having to bring food to the table for her seven brothers and sisters and of course her mother and one of her husbands.
That is all of Annie Oakley’s early life. I hope you enjoyed it!