Use that Pencil for Pizza!

By Hope Wallace

If you are age 5 to 18 we want to see what you can do! Take an unlined piece of paper and draw the “Draw this!” image, drop it off to us here at the Wassenberg Art Center for a chance to win a FREE medium pizza from Pizza Hut! We encourage you to interpret the drawing with your own style, color or technique. The deadline for dropping off your drawing is October 1. While tracing can be good, we encourage you to do your own thing. If the drawing appears to be traced it will be removed from the running. Please put your name, age, where you live, phone and email address on the back of your drawing. Winning drawings will be featured here.

If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for our classes, check them out! Some of them are filling up. For a quick fun Saturday morning to do, our Medieval Multimedia class still has openings. In this class young people will create a large piece of mixed media artwork filled with castles, dragons, knights in shining armor and duchesses in distress by compiling found materials such as fabric different types of paper, glue, paint…nothing is safe! This class teaches youth how to spot possibilities around them and help see limitless opportunities for creative potential.

The entries for our photography exhibit are ready to hang in the gallery for our 34 Annual Photography Exhibit. It is no surprise the quality of the images is astounding. This is yet another affirmation that beauty can be found right in our backyards. Thanks to members of the Wassenberg Camera Club and our jurors, Michael Lambright and Jim King. There will be a reception open to the public on October 1 from 7-9 p.m. Awards will be announced at 8 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Contact the art center at 419.238.6837 or via wassenberg@embarqmail.com.  The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington St. in Van Wert.

Annie Oakley had long and varied career

By Kay Sluterbeck

(Annie Oakley became a star performer both in the U.S. and Europe.  But constant touring was tiring both her and her husband/manager Frank Butler.)

Annie and Frank continued to tour Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West during 1891 and 1892.  After spending three and a half years touring in Germany, Belgium, Holland and England, the troupe headed back to New York.

With six months off before heading to Chicago for the next long engagement, Annie and Frank decided to settle down as much as their touring life would allow.  They built a three-story house in Nutley, New Jersey.  After many years on the road, their lives now fell into a pattern; they traveled with the Wild West from March through October, and then went back to Nutley to give exhibitions or pursue other projects.  One of these projects involved the inventor of the motion picture camera, Thomas Edison.

In 1894 Annie, Buffalo Bill and some Indians from the show went to West Orange, New Jersey, to be filmed by Edison.  The film of Annie Oakley, only 80 seconds long, shows her firing a rifle 25 times in 27 seconds, and then shooting glass balls tossed in the air.  Following this performance, Annie appeared in a stage play in London, “Miss Rora,” about a sharpshooter and horsewoman, written especially for her.  This was the first of several stage appearances for Annie, and audiences applauded her heroic deeds onstage just as they had in the arena.

When the Wild West toured, Annie and Frank had their own living quarters on the show’s 52-car train.  However, despite thinking of retirement, the couple kept going back for “just another year.”  But on October 29, 1901, their train was involved in a serious wreck.  Annie was thrown from her bed and slammed into a trunk.  Stories differ on how serious her injuries were,  but she was shaken up enough to retire from the show.

Frank took a job with a company that made ammunition for guns, and Annie continued to take part in shooting matches and exhibitions, as well as pursuing her stage career.  However, she put this on hold when two Chicago newspapers reported she was in jail after stealing money to buy illegal drugs.  (It turned out that the woman in jail was an actress who had worked under the name “Any Oakley.”)  The story went nationwide and Annie was livid.  She had spent years building up a reputation as a role model and was not about to see it blackened.  She filed lawsuits against 55 newspapers and spent much of the next seven years testifying in court.  She won or settled 54 of the cases, ending up with more than a quarter million dollars, which barely made up for her expenses.  But her reputation was clean.  Frank said later, “When she entered those suits, it was not money but vindication she was after.”

Annie continued to give exhibitions (wearing a brown wig; her hair had turned white shortly after the train accident).  She also began teaching women to shoot for both sport and protection, and estimated later that she had taught over 15,000 women to shoot.  During World War I, she, Frank and their dog Dave gave shows at Army posts.

In 1922, Annie and Frank’s chauffeur-driven car overturned; Frank was unhurt but Annie was pinned under the car and suffered a broken hip and shattered right ankle.  She had to wear a brace on her right leg for the rest of her life, but she and Frank slowly returned to a limited schedule of exhibitions and travel.

In 1925 Frank and Annie rented a house in Dayton to be near her family.  They were both in failing health.  While Frank was visiting a niece in Royal Oak, Michigan, he became so weak that the niece fixed up a room for him in her home.  Meanwhile, in Ohio, Annie realized that she needed full-time nursing care and moved to a boarding house in Greenville.  Shortly afterward she called the local funeral parlor to make her own funeral arrangements.  She died on November 3, 1926, at age 66.  Frank died in Royal Oak 18 days later, at age 76.

Annie’s body was cremated.  Her ashes were placed in one of her shooting trophy cups and then in a solid oak box. After Frank’s funeral, his body and Annie’s ashes were buried side by side in Brock Cemetery, just off the highway that is now called the Annie Oakley Memorial Pike, near Annie’s birthplace.  Before she died, Annie said, “After traveling through 14 foreign countries and appearing before royalty and nobility, I have only one wish today.  That is that when my eyes are closed in death that they will bury me back in that quiet little farm land where I was born.”