DEATHBED CONFESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20710, 7 May 1929, Page 9

DEATHBED CONFESSION

WOMAN MASQUERADES AS MAN. FORMERLY A NEW ZEALANDER. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) 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 20 years. , Stratford, who in her,life was a nonentity except to a small group of religious mystics, in death will attract world-wide attention. Sht was buried in a pauper’s grave at the San Lorenzo Cemetery before two spectators, neither of whom was a mourner. ■Morton came to New York many years ago from New Zealand, jUnd quickly became known for her literary ability. She then disappeared, and not until three days ago was she found again. She died in hospital from tuberculosis. In the 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 many women were' found among Morton’s effects. Entwined in every line of these letters, stretching into the innermost moments of Morton’s life, are threads of a mystic Mohammedan belief from the Orient known as . Sufism. — United Service.