Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on February 5, 1848, in Carthage, Jasper County, Missouri, to a prosperous innkeeping family.
Myra Maybelle Shirley, who would become famous as Belle Starr, was born on February 5, 1848, near Carthage in Jasper County, Missouri. She was the daughter of John Shirley, a farmer and later a successful innkeeper and tavern owner, and Elizabeth Hatfield Shirley. The Shirley family was relatively affluent for the region, and Belle received an unusually thorough education for a girl of her era, attending the Carthage Female Academy where she studied classical languages, literature, and music, including piano.
This early exposure to refinement and education stood in stark contrast to the violent, lawless life she would later lead, and it became a defining irony often noted by biographers and journalists who covered her later exploits. Her comfortable childhood was disrupted by the American Civil War, during which her family's fortunes declined and her brother Bud Shirley was killed while riding with a pro-Confederate guerrilla band, an event that historians believe pushed young Belle toward sympathy with outlaw culture and Confederate guerrillas such as Cole Younger and the James brothers.
Her birth date is well documented in genealogical and biographical records, including the Encyclopedia of Arkansas and Texas State Historical Association entries, making it one of the few precisely dated events in her otherwise legend-clouded life story.
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