Annalee Cannon
Played by Joan Caulfield
Annalee Cannon
Played by Joan Caulfield
Annalee was John Cannon's first wife and the mother of Blue. She is genteel and refined in her manners and speech, with a Southern charm seemingly out of place in the hostile environment of Apache Arizona in the 1870's. In fact, when the Cannon family shows up at the abandoned Rancho Rivera to claim their land, which we later learn Big John has purchased from the Spanish, the Army is waiting for them to tell them to get out. It is Annalee who names the ranch, and it is Annalee who provides the stability between Blue and John. Much of what we learn about her can be seen in the actions of Blue in the early episodes and from Victoria in "The Ghost of Chaparral". Annalee only appears in the first half of the pilot episode, known as "The High Chaparral" (aka "Destination Tucson"). While John and most of the ranch hands are out rounding up their stolen cattle, she is killed by an Apache arrow. This sets the stage for Part 2 of the pilot, "The Arrangement", whereby John is forced into an agreement with his southern neighbor, cattle baron Don Sebastian Montoya, against the Apaches by marrying the Patron's beautiful daughter, Victoria. Here is a bio of Annalee written by Sheryl Clay.
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John Cannon's first wife, and Billy Blue's
mother, Annalee Cannon, was a gentle and gracious woman, beautiful and
fair, sympathetic and kind. Brought up in a more civilized environment,
she was, perhaps, poorly suited for the harsh and dangerous life into
which her husband had brought her to follow his dream of an Arizona
cattle empire. Nonetheless, she shows herself possessed of surprising
steel. Her first encounter with her new home is a terrifying one: the
family with whom the Cannons have been staying is brutally massacred by
the Apache before her eyes, and when the Cannons arrive to take
possession of their own new ranch, the former
Rancho Rivera, it is filled with cavalry, ready to escort them away to safety. The house
has been wrecked by marauding Apache, and when former Rancho Rivera
ranch hand, Vaquero, stumbles upon them, bleeding and exhausted, to
inform John that he has two enemies, the Apache and Mexican cattle lord
Don Sebastian Montoya, a woman with less intestinal fortitude would have
packed her bags and left.
We know very little about her origins, although there are hints that
she may have been from Missouri, and that John, a native Virginian, may
have been living with her there or in Kansas before their trek to Arizona. The only
thing we know about her family is that she had a stepbrother named Dan
Brooks who grew up to become an outlaw and who eventually causes trouble
for John Cannon's family. Most of what we know about Annalee is what
she presents to us: she is a gentle, tender and generally obedient wife
who is nonetheless capable of expressing, and standing behind, her own
opinions, in her own sweet and self-effacing way.
There is no doubt that
John loves her deeply, and that she is his greatest support and succor
as he fights to weld his dreams into reality. She is also extremely
close to their son, Billy Blue, as he is to her. Her greatest concerns
seem to center around the fear that the division she sees growing
between the sensitive young man and his stern father will drive them
permanently apart as John tries to toughen their son to face the harsh
realities of their new life in that brutal land. It is her tender sympathy, however, and her courage for the sake of
others that proves to be her undoing in the end. Believing she hears the
cries of a white child captured by the Apache, Annalee puts herself
into the way of danger at an un-shuttered window to try to locate the
source of the cry. Her intention is to send Vaquero to the rescue, but
instead an Apache arrow finds her, and she dies in Vaquero's arms.
John Cannon, however, was determined to stay,
and Annalee was equally determined to stand beside her man, supporting
her husband's dream even to the point of refusing to leave when he tries
to send her to safety. We learn later, when John's second wife,
Victoria, finds Annalee's diary, that she did consider, often, leaving
the terrible struggle to return home to the East, but her great love for
John, and her belief in him, always changed her mind. It is she who,
riding out to meet John and the newly recovered herd, christens their
new home "The High Chaparral," leaving her mark on the land
forever.
Christening the High Chaparral
John and Annalee
Her
death shakes the family to the roots, and sets a measure for the events
that will take place from that moment forward. Billy Blue's bitter
grief, and his struggle to come to terms with his father's new wife,
brought to High Chaparral so soon after Annalee's death; John's own
struggle with the arranged marriage forced on him as part of his
agreement with Don Sebastian Montoya; Victoria's battle to overcome
the grief-stricken situation into which she has been thrust; even their
very relationship with the land that has brought such tragedy is colored
by Annalee Cannon's life and death, as her family moves past their pain
to embrace the love and understanding that was the essence of Annalee.
(By Sheryl Clay)
At Annalee's graveside service