b'steamer to London, it was the last time he was to tread hisaccident and partly because of falls she had suffered in her native soil" (Gould Lee, p.64). Yet as noted, Cody and hisstage performances. Maud Lee, in testimony made years wife were living at his mother\'s home in Davenport in earlylater, claimed that Lela Davis accused Maud Lee Cody of 1890, verified by city records from that period (Kuntz, p.being a hopeless drug addict, that she had fallen in love 51). Furthermore, Jenkins avers that Cody and his wifewith her husband and that she would be divorcing hers and never left for London until the early summer of 1890that she would make a better wife to Sam Cody than Maud (Jenkins, p. 37, Kuntz, p. 53). Whatever the case was, CodyLee had been (Kuntz, p. 81). By this time Samuel Cody had and his wife were escaping some troubles in their nativetaken stock of his young wife\'s immaturity, her increasing land to a Britain that, since Buffalo Bill\'s triumphant Wilddrug usage, of her inability to cope with life\'s problems and West tour of three years earlier, was embracing all thingsthe difficulty of stage life, and yes, he was strongly attracted Wild West. to Lela, who was more established, whose interests were similar to that of the Iowa Cowboy, had ties to the Royaln yIt was not difficult at all for the Codys to find employmentFamily, and was much more stable - and adventurous thanoT Pdoing the Wild West thing in London. One such showhis young naive wife. At any rate, he chose not to stand byehwas presented by noted British music impresario AlbertMaud Lee, who was emotionally falling apart at the seams, Newton Ridgeley at the famed Olympia Theater to a veryand on November 8, 1891, he bundled a much shaken, enthusiastic audience but Buffalo Bill\'s London solicitorsstunned young woman - who called herself Lillian Cody -2nd Hand Storecame-a-calling, strenuously objecting to the use of theaboard the Steamer S.S. Scythia bound for Boston - and on words "Wild West" in the production. The show came to anto her parents in Morristown, Pennsylvania - and stayed inglorious ending, suspended indefinitely. Shaken but stillbehind. Maud Lee Cody would never see her husbandWe Collect & Deliver relatively unperturbed, the Codys chose to sign up with aagain (Kuntz, p. 69).producer by the name of Frank Albert but it quickly becameYour Merchandiseapparent that not only had he bitten off a bit more than heIt is a bit difficult to connect all of the chronologicalFREE LOCAL DELIVERY AVAILABLEcould chew, but he had gone a bit too far in embracing thedots of Sam Cody\'s Cowboy life including his Wild West Buffalo Bill relationship persona. Whereas Oklahoma Harrystory and experiences followed by his suddenly abrupt662 W. Wickenburg Way Hill had merely stated in his press releases that Samueldeparture to Britain. Not only because Cody\'s retellingWickenburgOpen MondaySaturdayCody was a "cousin" of Buffalo Bill, Albert averred that theand recollections of his early life were dubious at best, couple were in fact, the son and daughter of the great scoutbut also because the chronology itself was a bit difficultthepony2ndhandstore.comhimself, which was impossible since Cody\'s only son Kitto follow especially in those last troubled years as a Wild928-231-2730928-232-2019Carson Cody had died in 1876 and his daughters were stillWest stage performer and the murky and troublesomeWe Carry Quality 2nd Hand children at the time. details of his turbulent marriage to fellow sharpshooter Maud Lee. It was a marriage that ended in a mysterious if& New MerchandiseThe solicitors came-a-calling a second time: "Our clients,not sordid dissolution with insinuations of abandonmentYour Home Furniture Supplies StoreColonel Cody and Buffalo Bill\'s Wild West Co. object toand insanity that did not reflect well on Samuel Cody.Specializing in Appliancesthe use of the term Wild West in the programme of theCody in effect chose to be a cad, abandoning, deserting entertainment given under your direction at Putney onbut never divorcing his obviously sick wife. Her fatherJane and Peter Kibble18 May . . ." Then came the bombshell. "And to a personand step-mother chose not to take Samuel Cody to courtpony2ndhandstore@outlook.com being called Captainwhile he was alive Cody and also to a- reasons unknown person being calledLela Davis(the possibility Miss Cody anddoes exist that being describedwas the strawa guilt-stricken by implicationthat broke theSamuel Cody may as a daughter ofhave surreptitiously the great Buffalocamels back forpaid at first for his Bill, such personsestranged wife\'s have no right toSam and Maudscare and treatment) furnish the namesrelationship. - but his failure to or the description"divorce his wife (Jenkins, pp.58-59). would eventually bite his estate in the Both husband and wife promptly went into hiding, andhindquarters upon his death when Maud\'s parents chose to although Albert won his case, being able to keep the termsue at that time (Jenkins, pp. 262-264).Wild West in future shows, the damage was done to the "other Codys." Not only could they no longer describeIt is only fair to briefly footnote the rest of Maud Lee\'s sad themselves as being the "son and daughter" of William F.life, which culminated with her incarceration 15 years later, Cody, but their marriage also disintegrated, due to Maudat age 34, in the Pennsylvania State House for the Insane Lee\'s instabilities and traumas - pushed to be a shootistin Norristown where she would stay for the last 41 years herself by her husband, she had accidentally shot andof her life. Addicted to morphine and diagnosed with injured a 12-year-old girl the previous year while theyschizophrenia, Maud Lee managed somehow to return were still in the states. The lasting trauma of shooting theto stage life the first few years after her forced return to young girl, coupled with this new legal problem would havethe states, but her increasingly erratic behavior, further probably shaken most young women just barely past theirinjuries, and her morphine craves would soon put paid teens but in Maud Lee Cody\'s case, the straw that broketo any hopes of a normal life. By 1903 she was living in a the camel\'s back was the discovery that her husband hadChicago flophouse - sheltered by and being cared for by a another woman - and she had won his heart. kindly Black man named Charles Curtis but when she was arrested for pilfering Curtis\'s suit pants and selling them The "other woman" was Lela Blackburne Davis, the veryfor morphine, she ended up in the Chicago Jail. One thing attractive and vivacious daughter of a wealthy Britishled to another, with Maud Lee, who had once worked for169 E Wickenburg Wayhorse fancier. She was herself 15 years older than Cody,Annie Oakley now claiming she WAS Annie Oakley.an accomplished horsewoman certainly much older andWickenburg, AZ 85390more mature than Maud Lee. Lela Davis was married withSomehow a Chicago reporter for the Hearst organization928-684-6123two children, but her marriage had collapsed by the timeby the name of George W. Pratt caught wind of this and she met the handsome young American who so resembledinterviewed Maud Lee in her cell, and without botheringOpen 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. DAILYa younger William Cody. A mutual attraction developedto verify the facts wrote up the following, extremely bizarre over their love of horses, and an affair developed betweenstory which made front-page news worldwide:the two, followed by a confrontation between the almost 40-year-old, assertive and experienced Lela Davis and the"Annie Oakley, the daughter-in-law of "Buffalo Bill" and the immature, emotionally fragile Maud Lee Cody, who herselfmost famous rifle shot in the world, lies today in a cell in the was barely 19 and had started the use of narcotics, partlyHarrison Street station under a Bridewell sentence for stealing because of the trauma of the aforementioned shootingthe trousers of a negro in order to get money with which to continued on page 20ArizonaRealCountry.com September 2021 19'