May Lillie

Mary Emma "May" Manning Lillie (March 12, 1869 – September 17, 1936) was an American sharpshooter and equestrian.

Biography Mary Manning was born on March 12, 1869, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents were physician William R. and Mary Manning. May had two sisters, Elmira, and Elizabeth Manning and a younger brother, William B. Manning. May also had three half-brothers: Samuel, Edward and Albert Eager. May met Gordon William Lillie who became famous as Pawnee Bill while attending Smith College in 1886, they married at her parents’ home in Philadelphia later that year.

Gordon Lillie's wedding gift to his bride was a pony and a Marlin .22 target rifle. In 1887 May debuted at a sharpshooter for Pawnee Bill's Great Wild West Show and was billed as 'the greatest Lady Horseback Rifle-shot of the World'. May traveled the country with her husband's show and was one of the first women to perform as an equestrian and shooter in American Wild West shows. May suffered a shooting injury during an act in 1899 that required two of her fingers to be amputated. While on tour in 1907, May gave a speech to women in Chicago, she said: "Let any normally healthy woman who is ordinarily strong screw up her courage and tackle a bucking bronco, and she will find the most fascinating pastime in the field of feminine athletic endeavor. There is nothing to compare, to increase the joy of living, and once accomplished, she’ll have more real fun than any pink tea or theater party or ballroom ever yielded."