MASQUERADED AS MAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23351, 17 November 1937, Page 14

MASQUERADED AS MAN

A CHEF IN AMERICA SECRET REVEALED BY DEATH NEW YORK, Nov. 16. (Received Nov. 16, at 11.30 p.m.) A message from Oyster Bay says: " Not until her death was the secret which the chef to a socially prominent family had concealed for 14 years revealed— namely, that, working as a man under the name oi Alfred Grouard, she was really a woman. Moreover, the determination to keep her secret cost her life, as she resisted every attempt to provide medical attention. It was disclosed after her death that she had been a victim of diabetes, a condition that might easily have been controlled by the use of insulin. " The employer, who engaged the short, stocky chef without references because he impressed him as an efficient type of man, declared that Grouard was a faultless servant, having apparently only two interests in life— cooking and religion. " Grouard never left her employer s estate for 14 years, never received a letter, and never had a caller. When her health failed last year, Grouard repulsed her employer's physician hysterically, but her sex was discovered while she was under a coma."