Queen of Hearts

Did you know that a free ticket is called an "Annie Oakley"? (I didn't either, and maybe, since ticket takers no longer punch holes in tickets, this usage is becoming outdated.)

When you get an admission ticket for free ahead of time, it is hole-punched just like it would have been had you used it to gain entry. And then it looks just like Annie's Ace of Hearts: one of her most famous sharpshooting tricks was a bullet through the center of a playing card, the Ace of Hearts, at 90 feet with a .22 caliber rifle. (She could also split the card edge-on.)

Annie was born to a poor Quaker family in Ohio in 1860. She taught herself to shoot when she was 8 years old and supported her family by selling the game she bagged to families, restaurants, and hotels in Southern Ohio. By the time she was 15, she had paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm.

For two of those years, 1870 to 1872, her mother could not take care of her and her sister and sent them to Darke County Infirmary, where she learned to sew and embroider. (Later, as a performer, she made her own costume, according to her idea of modesty: long-sleeved blouse, below-the-knee skirt, and leggings.) She was put out as an indentured servant to a couple she later called "the wolves"; they abused her physically and mentally and treated her like a slave.

When she was 15, she won a shooting contest with a traveling Irish marksman, Frank Butler, who had bet a hundred dollars that he could beat any local fancy shooter. They were married soon after, in 1876. In 1885, they joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, left the wild west show and toured Europe, and returned to the show. Her fellow performer Chief Sitting Bull named her Watanya Cicilla, or Little Sharpshooter.

In later years, Annie was injured in a train collision and a car accident and turned to acting. But she continued to set sharpshooting records. Although she did not think women should have the vote, she taught many women to shoot and occasionally supported young women who needed financial help. When she died, at age 66, her husband quit eating and died 18 days later: a real-life love story.

With much indebtedness to the Wikipedia article on Annie Oakley.