THE MAN IN PETTICOATS

Evening Star, Issue 11609, 20 June 1902, Page 3

THE MAN IN PETTICOATS

When Frank Lashaway was laid to rest the other day in a little cemetery I,car Montague, New' York, the end came to a remarkably curious iiie. Ho was buried in petticoats, and the Stranges' part of this fact is, says the ‘ Chicago Tribune,’ that ho had worn them for forty years. The day he was nineteen years old he donned woman’s attire, at th"e request of his mother, who feared he would be drafted to serve in the. army, and from that time until a short time before he died he posed as a woman. Frank was born in Bay City, Michigan. He was a slender, sickly lad, fond of books and handy at housework. After his fath r’s death his mother decided to return to her girlhood home in Lewis County, New York. Just about this time the first levy of drafted men was to be drawn, and his mother was in terror lest her only child should be conscripted. She conceived the idea of passing her slender and effemina e-looking boy off for a daughter in the new home to which they were going, and he was induced to don some of her clothing, which had been made ove- for him. She gave him ‘he name of “Frankie,” and for many years after hsr arrival in the Salmon Creek neighborhood his sex was not suspected. While acting as school teacher in a large district ;n Lewis County known as Haymarket, Lshaway met- many young women, and fell in Jove with one. the daughter of a fanner, who caused him to deplore the fate that had dressed him in the garb worn by the object of his affections. They became close friends, and he was later subjected to the humiliation of hearing her confession of love for a young farmer in the neighborhood. During the winter months that followed he considered the advisability of going away among strangers and putting on man’s attire, hut the following summer went to a circus, and in the ride show met the “ bearded lady.” He became greatly interested in her,' and spent the entire afternoon in the side show Noticing his regard end fhe bluish-bla-k hue of his skin, the hewbiskered freak and the petticoat youth fell into conversation, and Lashaway confessed his secret. The freak directed him to allow his beard to grow, but to keep hia sex a secret. She gave him the address of a firm in New York where he could secure a situation with a museum. Lashaway went back home j and shut himself in the bouse for a year, j At the end of this time he emerged with a fine beard. Heavily veiled, he went to I New York and secured an engagement, i being billed as Madelline De Roux, the i b aided woman. He posed under the side show tent during the next ten years. Tim he kired of this life, and returned to his home in Montague. It was then that h's secret leaked out, and his neighbors learned that “ Frankie ” Lashaway was a man. By this time, however, be had become so habtuated to wearing female attire that he refused to give np his petticoats, and his last request was that he be buried in them. The request was carried out.