Bio: Recused By Gun

Annie Oakley was born, Phoebe Ann Frances Moses, in Drake County, Ohio on Aug. 13, 1860. She was the sixth of eight children and a tomboy from age one. She learned to shoot game when she was eight. Annie did not have a happy childhood; her father and sister died when she was eight from pneumonia. She was separated from her siblings and placed into a poor county farm (a foster home) because her mother couldn’t afford to keep her. Annie ran away when she was 14 because she was abused emotionally and mentally by her foster parents. She then set up a trapshooting business. That business paid off her mother’s mortgage. She got married when she was 18 to Frank Butler, a world famous sharpshooter, whom she beat. The gun rescued her from poverty, she got money from it, became famous, and found a husband as a result.