Calamity jane daughter
Better known by her nickname Calamity Jane, the legendary Martha Jane Canary was famed as a sharp-shooting, tobacco-spitting, whisky-guzzling and foul-mouthed reprobate who regularly wore mens clothes and engaged in fearsome gunfights in midth century Americas Wild West.
As ever, the truth is more nuanced.
Much of what we know about Calamity Janes life comes from an autobiographical booklet that she dictated in which contained highly sensationalised or totally fabricated information.
More truthful reports about Calamity Jane paint a picture of a woman who was never extremely violent, and in spite of her fearsome reputation could also be kind and charitable.
She cared about her daughters, tended to the sick and had a lifelong unrequited love for Wild Bill Hickok before dying impoverished and ravaged by alcoholism.
Here are 10 facts about Calamity Jane and her fascinating life.
1. She was one of six children
Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Cannary on 1 May , in Princeton, Missouri.
She was the eldest of six children born to Robert and Charlotte Cannary, who were reportedly unsavoury figures involved in petty crime. The family was often financially destitute.
2. She was orphaned aged 12
In , the family moved by wagon train to Montana, perhaps to try and make their fortune in the goldfields.
Janes mother Charlotte died of pneumonia en route.
Janes father Robert then took his children to Utah, where he found work as a farmer.
Calamity jane cause of death photos Martha Jane Canary May 1, — August 1, , better known as Calamity Jane , was an American frontierswoman , sharpshooter , and storyteller. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a noted frontier figure. Much of the information about the early years of Calamity Jane's life comes from an autobiographical booklet that she dictated in , written for publicity purposes. It was intended to help attract audiences to a tour she was about to begin, in which she appeared in dime museums around the United States.He died in , leaving year-old Jane in charge of her five younger siblings. Jane loaded up their belongings on a wagon, and the family travelled to Piedmont, Wyoming.
3. She worked a variety of jobs
Calamity Jane in her kitchen in Livingston, Montana, when she met Louis R. Freeman in , the meeting described in Down the Yellowstone, pub.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In Piedmont, Jane took jobs as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dance hall girl, nurse, ox-team driver and from was an on-and-off sex worker at the Fort Laramie Three-Mile Hog Ranch.
It was at this time that Jane began to take on male jobs and wear male clothing, and became known for her horseriding and shooting abilities.
She then moved to a rougher and more adventurous life on the Great Plains, where she became involved in several campaigns as part of long-running military conflicts with Native American groups. However, Wild West storyteller Captain Jack Crawford stated that Jane never saw a lynching and never was in an Indian fight.
She was simply a notorious character, dissolute and devilish, but possessed a generous streak which made her popular.
4. The origins of her nickname are disputed
It was claimed that Jane earned the nickname Calamity Jane during her time as a sex worker. It is also claimed that the name was a result of her warnings to men that to offend her was to court calamity.
Jane herself claimed that she was given the name between by Captain Egan, who was in command of a post in Goose Creek, Wyoming.
When ordered to quell an uprising of Native Americans, Captain Egan was wounded but was saved by Jane, and reportedly stated, I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.
What is certain is that she was known by the nickname by , when Jane arrived in Deadwood and the local newspaper reported that Calamity Jane has arrived!
5.
She could be kind and charitable
Alongside her fearsome reputation as a gunslinger, Jane was known to have a tender side. At one time, she saved numerous passengers in a stagecoach by diverting several Native Americans who were in pursuit and took over the reins herself to drive the vehicle to safety.
Many accounts also state that in or she nursed many victims of a smallpox outbreak.
When tending to the children, a doctor noted that “oh, she’d swear to beat hell at them, but it was a tender kind of cussin’.”
6. She had a rumoured relationship with Wild Bill Hickok
Calamity Jane at Wild Bill Hickoks gravesite in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, c. s.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Calamity Jane met Wild Bill Hickok in when he was travelling in the same wagon train to Deadwood, South Dakota.
As elaborate exaggerators and heavy drinkers, the pair are said to have hit it off immediately.
Though it has been widely reported that the two were romantically involved and even had a child together, there is little evidence to support the stories.
Cause of death examples
By the time she was 12, Calamity Jane's parents had died and she had to make a living by any means necessary. Her reputation was advanced with stories of heroism and charity in an autobiography and western dime novels. She performed in Wild West shows immortalizing her as one of the more colorful characters of the West. Eventually, the hard life caught up with her and she died at age 51, in It seems her biography is a mix of wild tales — many promoted by Jane herself — and plausibly accurate events.Reports from the time instead indicate that Jane claimed to love Hickok, but he did not return her affections.
7. She reportedly had two daughters
In August , Jane reportedly married a man named either Edward or Clinton Burke and gave birth to a daughter in October Numerous accounts report that she was often seen with a young girl in several small towns throughout the Old West in the s and s.
No marriage or birth certificate exists.
In , a woman named Jean Hickok Burkhardt McCormick, who had claimed to be the legal offspring of Jane and Hickok, was proved to be a fraud. McCormick was also responsible for publishing a bundle of unsent letters to Janes daughter which were found among Janes belongings at her death.
Cause of death ipod: In , Charlotte died of pneumonia along the way, in Blackfoot, Montana. After arriving in Virginia City in the spring of , Robert took his six children to Salt Lake City, Utah. They arrived in the summer, and Robert supposedly started farming on 40 acres (16 ha) of land.
Their authenticity is disputed, largely because Jane was almost certainly illiterate.
8. She performed with Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bills Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World Circus poster showing cowboys rounding up cattle and portrait of Col. W.F. Cody on horseback, c.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Jane had a reputation for impressive horsewomanship and shooting abilities. As a result, her skills took her to Buffalo Bills Wild West Show in where she performed sharpshooting astride her horse. She toured Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, and she was widely famed. However, she was frequently fired for drunkenness.
In , she was hired by the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
However, she then lost her job and was chased out of the town for drunkenness, cursing and being disruptive.
9.Calamity jane cause of death Calamity Jane born Martha Jane Cannary; —August 1, was a controversial figure in the Wild West whose adventures and exploits are shrouded in mystery, legend, and self-promotion. She is known to have dressed and worked as a man, to have been a hard drinker, and to been skilled with guns and horses. The details of her life are mostly unproven, given the amount of fabrication and hearsay that inform her story. She was the oldest of five siblings. Jane relayed the story of their journey in her later biography with considerable relish, describing how she hunted with the men and learned to drive the wagons herself.
She was an alcoholic
There is evidence that Jane was an alcoholic from a young age. For instance, in , she rented a horse and buggy for a one-mile joy ride. However, she was so drunk that she accidentally passed right by her destination and ended up around 90 miles away at Fort Laramie.
Calamity Jane and Teddy Blue Abbott drink beer at a bar in Gilt Edge, Montana, circa
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
In the late s, Jane returned to Deadwood and organised a benefit at a theatre to raise money for her daughters education at a nearby Catholic boarding school.
Though the benefit raised a large sum, she got drunk and spent a large amount of money on the same night.
Jane was apparently aware of her weakness for alcohol and was motivated to seek a better life for her daughters as a result.
She died impoverished
By the turn of the century, Janes hard life was catching up with her.
Severe alcoholism and poor health meant that she was taken ill on a train and sent to the Calloway Hotel in Terry, South Dakota. She died on 1 August , from inflammation of the bowels and pneumonia.
Her dying wish was to be buried next to Wild Bill Hickok. Her request was granted, and she was buried on Mt. Moriah overlooking the town of Deadwood.
Her funeral was the largest to be held in Deadwood for a woman.
Cause of death imdb As ever, the truth is more nuanced. More truthful reports about Calamity Jane paint a picture of a woman who was never extremely violent, and in spite of her fearsome reputation could also be kind and charitable. She cared about her daughters, tended to the sick and had a lifelong unrequited love for Wild Bill Hickok before dying impoverished and ravaged by alcoholism. She was the eldest of six children born to Robert and Charlotte Cannary, who were reportedly unsavoury figures involved in petty crime. The family was often financially destitute.Touchingly, her coffin was closed by a man who, as a boy, she had nursed back to health when he suffered from smallpox as a child.
At the end of the American Civil War, thousands of African Americans ventured west to the frontier in a bid to achieve freedom and escape the prejudice they faced. Many of these frontiersmen became cowboys with up to 25 per cent of cowboys were in fact black.
Whilst Westerns became big business in Hollywood this fact was largely been ignored by major film studios. Why is this?
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