Read The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley Online

Authors: Glenda Riley

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Women, #History, #United States, #19th Century, #test

The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley (21 page)

BOOK: The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley
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Page 118
In Annie's day, a second component of true ladyhood was marriage. Annie Oakley not only married as a young girl but stayed married until her death in 1926. In 1902, she remarked that she "was rather an oddity among professional women," for in twenty years, she had had only one husband. The following year, reporter Amy Leslie described Annie, the woman and wife, as "plain, kindly, homelike and genuine." According to Leslie, the Butlers' married life was quiet and domestic; they lived "one of the most retired, modest, commonplace sorts of life" when not on the road.
Annie and Frank had what reformers of the era termed a companionate marriage. Respect, reciprocity, and romance characterized their personal relationship, which was based on companionship rather than a male-dominant, female-subordinate model. Equality and versatile roles defined their public relationship, which was a business partnership rather than a male-breadwinner type.
In addition, over the years Annie's and Frank's economic contributions shifted back and forth, but neither saw the other as a lesser partner. At first, Frank earned most of their income. Then Annie joined him on the stage. When Frank realized her superior skills, he retired from the act and became her manager. In 1901, Annie left Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and Frank resumed the major responsibility for supporting them. Both, however, toured with the Union Metallic Cartridge Company's exhibition team. In 1911, Annie joined the Young Buffalo Show, and Frank resumed his position as manager until she retired in 1913.
Frank played a critical role in both their marriage and their business partnership. Perhaps, like Annie, his early life convinced him that a good income was far more important than who earned it. Or possibly he appreciated the rewards in being the behind-the-scenes person. Therefore, in an era when most men not only expected to be the primary earner in a family but also sought public recognition for their achievements, Frank Butler fulfilled himself by looking after Annie and working at jobs that suited him, including doing publicity for the Wild West and representing the Union Metallic Cartridge Company.
Besides facilitating Annie's career, Frank played a crucial role in

 

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both Annie's successful career and her maintenance of true womanhood. It was Frank, after all, who allowed Annie to act sedate and restrained, for he usually dealt with the complexities and aggravations of publicity, contracts, travel, equipment, and finances. While traveling, for example, Frank always carried a hidden one-hundred-dollar bill to tide Annie and him over should they be robbed or run out of money. In addition, Frank bragged about Annie's exploits. While she sat quietly and presented the image of what one reporter called "a modest, retiring, lovable little woman," Frank effectively promoted her.
Frank's many contributions were not lost on Annie, who often said, "Frank's job is taking care of me." According to her niece and namesake Anna Fern Campbell Swartwout, Annie also knew when to let Frank boast about himself. Whenever Frank said that he let her win that first match in Ohio, Annie would flutter her eyelashes and smile. Or he might say that he wished he had let one of her swains have her, and rather than getting provoked, Annie would simply reply, "I wish you had too."
Throughout their marriage, the Butlers seemed to be a happy, outgoing couple who enjoyed the spotlight. Still, because they used different names, many people thought Annie was unmarried. Also, Annie appeared girlish, sexy, and appealing well into the early 1900s. Male fans often desired her, perhaps as much for her power and wealth as for her appearance. Thus, among Annie's fan letters, she frequently found offers of marriage, which she sometimes handled with tact and delicacy. Annie treated gently the twenty-one-year-old lad who claimed he had not missed a day's performance since the Wild West opened and declared that she "was the one little girl" he could ever love. When Annie informed him that she already had a husband, he left for South America.
But on other occasions, Annie revealed her tough, sarcastic, and even disrespectful side. When a French count wrote to her in London in 1887 saying he dreamed of the day he could take her home to France and his mother, Annie acted in a most unladylike way. Judging him "the ugliest monkey you ever saw," Annie shot a bullet through the photograph at "the place where the brains should have been." She wrote "Respectfully declined" across the

 

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chest and returned his photograph to him. Annie proudly repeated this story throughout her life, which suggests that she failed to see the discrepancy between her own ladylike aspirations and her sometimes cranky behavior.
Of course, most people did understand that Annie Oakley and Frank Butler were husband and wife, a fact newspapers frequently mentioned. Also, the Butlers often entertained and appeared in public together. Their rich social life included everything from informal receptions in her tent to opening nights at the opera. In 1895, while playing in Massachusetts, they held an informal reception for a group of their friends, nearly all members of the Worcester Sportsmen's Club and their "ladies." The Butlers held the party in Annie and Frank's tent right after the show, gave their guests a tour behind the show's scenes, and concluded the festivities by presenting each woman with an autographed photograph of Annie as a memento of the evening.
Annie and Frank also accepted many of the invitations that poured in on them. In 1892, they attended a reception in New York with what one observer called "celebrated people, good music, and gay dresses." In 1898, a New York newspaper reported that "Dr. Butler and wife (Annie Oakley)" had attended the performance at the Opera House the previous evening. Also among their invitations were wedding invitations, including a 1907 announcement from the New York Rockefellers. In that same year, a Pinehurst, North Carolina, society reporter described the Butlers as "social lions" of the Carolina Hotel's season.
Annie and Frank's only sorrow may have been their lack of children. Neither of them ever mentioned the subject; it was not a subject discussed publicly, especially by a Victorian lady. Because family, friends, and curious reporters apparently avoided the issue, their feelings about childbearing remain unknown.
Annie and Frank's lack of children may very well have been a matter of choice, for birth control was available, if somewhat difficult to obtain. Just before Annie and Frank married, preventing conception became more difficult because of an act of the U.S. Congress. This act of 1873 was known as the Comstock Law after the YMCA's leader of its "Suppression of Vice" campaign, Anthony Comstock, who recommended the legislation to Con-

 

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gress. The law reflected a widespread reaction against the growing use of contraceptives in the United States and accompanying fears that birth control would destroy the American family. In 1873, then, Congress passed a law banning "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion" as well as the advertisement of such contraband. There is evidence, however, that birth control information and such devices as the forerunner to the diaphragm, the pessary, continued to circulate, especially in urban areas.
Perhaps Annie chose not to have children because she had helped her mother through so many travails, or maybe Frank wanted no more children because through divorce he had lost his children by a previous marriage. Possibly they both agreed that it would be extremely difficult to raise children on the road, or perhaps Annie feared the chaos that children would introduce into her orderly life. Or maybe they had no choice in the matter because conception simply never occurred. Recent medical studies indicate that women who follow an intense athletic regimen often stop menstruating; perhaps Annie never conceived because of her level of physical activity.
One last potential explanation of Annie and Frank's childless state exists. If Annie was sexually abused as a girl, she may have sustained injury that prevented conception or may even have turned away from sex for the rest of her life. It is conceivable, even though unlikely, that she and Frank had a nonsexual marriage, that he played the role of father to her role as daughter, and that children were never a possibility.
Certainly, Annie demonstrated her love of children on many occasions. During her first tour of England, she held monthly teas for London children. She recalled that her six months in London "were made happier" by her "children friends." Apparently, Annie later continued to include children among her guests, for in 1892 a reporter described the warm way in which Annie welcomed children into her tent. "She is as fond of children as they are devoted to her." In 1899, Annie commented that she enjoyed the letters she received from children more than those from adult fans.
Annie also lavished love and attention on Johnny Baker's two

 

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daughters. She sent them money for clothes and toys and had their likenesses painted on a gold-encircled brooch, which she frequently wore. After Baker's wife died, Annie and Frank invited the girls for frequent visits and said more than once that they were ''the smartest children you ever saw." In 1899, a poem by an anonymous poet recognized the tie between the Butlers and the Baker children. Called "We've No Mama," it concluded with the following lines:
Now I hear her, Annie Oakley
Whispers "Babies, don't forget!
Yes, I know you have no Mama
And you are your papa's pets
Yes, I love you as a mother; And your Frank, he loves you too.
Don't forget us, dearest babies; For our love is pure and true.
Annie also paid a great deal of attention to her sisters' children. In later years, Hulda's girl, Anna Fern, born in 1888, complimented Annie, as well as Frank, for noticing everything Annie's nieces and nephews did and said even though they were "only little bits of humanity" at the time. Fern remembered that Annie made the children laugh with funny pranks, like sticking bits of paper to her face, and that Frank wrote poems for them. After Fern visited the Wild West with her family in Piqua, Ohio, in 1895, Buffalo Bill sent her a .44-caliber Winchester, and Frank taught her how to shoot. When Annie learned that Fern also liked to sew, she sent her dress material and patterns. Annie often asked Fern to accompany her to some of the libel trials between 1904 and 1910, and in 1911, when Annie joined the Young Buffalo Show, she took Fern touring with her. Understandably, Fern developed absolute devotion to Annie and Frank and sometimes acted like the daughter they never had.
Emily Brumbaugh Patterson's daughter, Irene, was another niece whom Annie favored. Irene remarked that every month of her young life, she received a package from her Aunt Ann and Uncle Frank. In it were items of clothing, underwear, bits of lace, or money. At one time, Annie had small gold pins shaped like guns made for each of her nieces, then destroyed the mold. Irene claimed that she was the only niece who still had her pin and that she wore it every time she left the house.
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