February 13th, 2008

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and some of the Old West romances I’ve been able to write about come to mind. One of the sweetest romantic stories (told in the book ‘Love Untamed’) was the romance between Frank Butler and Annie Oakley. The couple performed their sharpshooting acts together. Butler soon realized it was his wife the crowds were coming to see, and not him. Ultimately, he stepped aside and put Annie front and center. It was a generous sacrifice and one that continues to move me. They had been married for 52 years when Oakley died in 1926. Frank Butler was so overcome with grief that he stopped eating and died 17 days later. We know about Annie Oakley’s accomplishment, but we seldom ever hear about what Frank did.
Another fascinating tale, this one less romantic, appears in the book Hearts West. Eleanor Berry wrote to the Matrimonial News to find a husband and struck up a correspondence with a gentleman who asked her to marry him. So she traveled to the Nevada County area. No sooner did she get here when her stagecoach was held up by masked bandits, who demanded that everybody throw down everything they owned. She was frantic. She was on her way to get married and had her trousseau with her. She pleaded with the robbers, ‘Please let me keep these things.’ The leader said OK. Eleanor proceeded to the home where the ceremony would take place. There, she met her future sister-in-law, who took her into the back bedroom and helped her prepare for the wedding.
When the organist started to play, Eleanor came out and met the man she’d been corresponding with for so long. The moment he began to speak, though, there was something familiar about him. Then she realized he was the man who had just held her up.