Who’s in Your Family Tree?

I’m always on the lookout for outstanding girls to add to the inspiration section, so this time I decided to sift back through my family history books. My grandma has several binders full of news clippings, photos and memorabilia that go back a couple of centuries. I have been told my entire life that we are related to sharpshooter Annie Oakley of the late 1800’s. In fact, my maiden name “Ozee” is actually the result of Annie’s family mispelling their own last name and passing it down in variation. Growing up, my dad (a big history buff) took us to just about every Buffalo Bill site or any other place connected to Annie and he’d say things like “your distant cousin, Annie Oakley used to shoot that gun” or “see that playing card…Annie did that!” I always rolled my eyes and really didn’t think it was all that cool. So today, I decided to read up on Annie and see what all the fuss was about…

It turns out that Annie Oakley is considered to be the first female American Superstar. Who knew? Her biography in itself is amazing. From a rough childhood, she became a cultural icon in her teens and early twenties where she had a lengthy and outstanding career as a sharpshooter. She later survived a train wreck that left her paralyzed, recovered and continued her career. Later she suffered injuries in a car crash and again recovered and went on to help women’s sufferage until her death at the age of 66. What a cool chick!While I am no sharpshooter, I can totally relate to her spirit. Recovering from a spinal injury sounds vaguely familiar to me (I’ll talk about it on here someday) and her drive for excellence and to help other people is very much a goal of mine. I had no idea we had so much in common. Must be in the genes, right?

As for the sharpshooting, well, I have never shot anything more powerful than a BB rifle. My neighbor Jason & I used to ride our bikes out to his grandparent’s farm and shoot the rats in the barn when I was about 10. I was a pretty good shot back then. We scored each other on how quickly we could kill the rat. If we could shoot it in the eye, it would pretty much die instantly. If we hit anywhere else, it took a few more shots to actually kill it. The winner was whoever could kill the most rats with the least amount of shots. Cruel, I know, but cut me some slack I was only 10 at the time. Birds on the the other hand, were pretty much a one-shot deal…ok, I’ll stop… My dad got his first shotgun this Christmas…maybe I should go trap shooting with him in the near future…hmm.

So who’s in your family tree? Let me know. I’m always looking for good material for this site.

You can read more about Annie Oakley in the Girls Who Can section.