LIVED AS A MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 105, 6 May 1929, Page 7

LIVED AS A MAN.

WOMAN FROM N.Z. DEATHBED ADMISSION. 20 Years' Masquerade Startles The World. DESERTED BY HER " WIFE." (United Service.) (Received 1 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 5. A message from Oakland, California., says that, confessing on her deathbed, Deresley Morton, a New Zealander, known as Peter Stratford, announced: "I am not a man. lam a woman." She disclosed that she had masqueraded as a man for twenty years. Stratford who in life was a nonentity except to a small group of religious mystics, in death will attract world-wide attention. She was buried in a pauper's grave at San Lorenzo Cemetery, before two spectators, neither of whom were mourners. Morton came to New York many years ago from New Zealand and quickly became known for her literary ability. She then disappeared, and not until three days ago was slie found again. She died in hospital from tuberculosis in tho name of Stratford. She had married and had carried on correspondence with numerous other women. The "widow" is Mrs. Elizabeth Rowland, of Kansas City. She deserted her so-called husband five months ago, when she learned of the hoax. Letters to and from the women were found among Morton's effects. Twined in every line of these letters, stretching into the innermost moments of Morton's life, are threads, of mystic Mohammedan belief from the Orient known as Sufism.