Girl Artist Captures Intruder in Cabin

1919

Finds Queer Young Man Attired in Her Pet Toggery.

PITTSBURGH, Pennysylvania — At the point of a revolver Miss Gertrude Zeigler, an artist and decorator residing in a rustic log cabin in the woods, near West View, marched a male intruder whom she discovered in her home, over a mile through the snow to the office of Herman P. Brandt, justice of the peace of Perrysville.

Miss Zeigler discovered the young man, Ralph Rutledge, 21 years old, of Mount Pleasant, Pa., busy preparing his breakfast.

Rutledge had eaten of the best while in the Zeigler home and when caught was attired in a ladies' golf sweater, silk hose and a pair of pink pumps belonging to Miss Zeigler.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 8.

Woman Lived 60 Years As A Man

1908

Double Life — Married One of Her Own Sex

Trinidad, Colorado — Katherine Vosbaugh, an eccentric Frenchwoman of brilliant attainments, died here the other day at the age of 83, after masquerading for 60 years as a man. The woman donned trousers when a girl and had a horror of skirts up to the time of her death. She filled a score of responsible positions, and her true sex was never suspected.

Just twice during her entire life was the fact that Katherine Vosbaugh was a woman made known. The first time was when, at 30 years of age, she revealed it to the young woman she married in St. Joseph, Mo. The next and last time when she was convinced she was dying, and was compelled to inform the hospital physician.

During her long life she had been a bank clerk, a sheep herder, a bookkeeper, a restaurant-keeper and a mining camp cook. Although she spoke several languages and had been brought up in refinement, she seemed never so happy as when she was clad in rough overalls and heavy shoes, doing the most laborious work.

She wandered all over the world, and although often compelled to associate with the roughest men, she was never suspected of being a woman, and on more than one occasion proved herself more of a manly man than her associates. She came to America in 1842 at the age of 18, shortly after her father's death. She decided that she could make her way as a man, but not as a woman. She donned trousers and settled in Joplin, Mo., as a bookkeeper.

For nine years she remained in Joplin and was esteemed a fine young man and one whom more than one young woman considered a most eligible partner. Her excellent record, education and steadiness procured her a position as clerk at a St. Joseph bank. It was shortly after she accepted this position that she learned of the trouble of the young woman whom she afterward married.

When Miss Vosbaugh's "wife's" baby was born the oddly attached people removed to Trinidad and opened up a French restaurant. The town people thought them a model couple. The baby died a few months later. Shortly after the mother disappeared, and the "husband" refused to make a search for her. The people of Trinidad were profuse in their expressions of sympathy for the deserted "man."

Forty years ago Miss Vosbaugh obtained employment at the Sam Brown ranch, near Trinchera, as a sheep herder. Later when she saw that her sex could not be discovered except through unusual accident, she accepted work as a camp cook, and remained in that capacity up to two years ago. Some of the roughest characters known to the west associated with her without ever suspecting her sex. In many stirring scenes when men revealed fear and nervousness she kept her poise.

Two years ago her infirmities compelled her removal to San Raphael hospital. Even then the men of the camp bade her good-bye affectionately as "Grandpa" and "Old Man Frenchy." For many weeks she refused to bathe unless she could do so without attendants being present, to the great amusement of the sisters, who joked about the old man's overmodesty. Shortly after she was seized with a severe cold, which led to the physician's examination laying bare her life secret.

When her sex was revealed the hospital authorities at first insisted that she wear the proper garb of her sex. The garments proved so irksome to her, however, that she was finally permitted to return to overalls. She pottered around the hospital working for the sisters up to the time of her death.

Boy Carries Dog 20 Miles

1910

Washington Lad in Long Tramp Would Not Abandon His Pet Pup — Paws Were Sore

Tacoma, Washington. — Without railroad fare from North Yakima and forced to walk the entire distance of nearly 200 miles because of a desire to seek employment upon some lumber schooner plying out of Tacoma, Walter Anderson, aged nineteen, carried his bull terrier dog the last twenty miles of his journey after the animal had worn its feet until they were bleeding on the rough, graveled roadbed of the Northern Pacific.

Anderson appeared at the police station the other morning and asked to be directed to some shipping company. He was carrying the dog and had torn up his handkerchief to bandage its bleeding paws. Anderson said he had been eight days on the road sleeping out of doors. He had a little money, but was saving it to buy food. His first step on entering Tacoma was to buy meat for the dog at a butcher shop.

"You see, the little fellow isn't used to the road and it was rather tough on him, so I carried him," said Anderson. "You know he is only a dog and doesn't understand why we should be on this long hike, but he stuck to me nobly."

Crowded Mass Transit Train — The Fat Man and The Spinster

1905

ON STRANGER'S LAP SPINSTER RODE IN CROWDED ELEVATED TRAIN

Situation Enjoyed by the Other Passengers, but Decidedly Distasteful to the Principals — Fat Man Finally Succumbs to Fate

The elevated train was chock full when the very stout man got on at Thirty-third street. There wasn't room between platform and platform for a famine victim; but the stout man, like all stout men, didn't see how he could make any difference. He stepped upon the platform buoyantly, mashing a messenger boy flat against the door and spreading a lemon-faced little spinster all over the window like jam or butter.

At Twenty-eighth street half a dozen people got out. Instantly there was a rush for seats and standing room left inside the car. But alas! when a fat man gets wedged in a doorway, who else can penetrate it? Again, like all fat men, the fat man was lucky, and, strange as it may appear, he managed to get one of the seats recently vacated.

When he had sat down the little spinster gathered herself together and found a foothold in front of him, and the others, with some new passengers just taken on, crowded in after her and packed themselves like sardines. They were squeezed so tight that the spinster reached for a strap to keep from being pushed over on the fat man's head and shoulders. But just as she made a grasp somebody else caught the only remaining strap. The bell rang sharply and the train started with a jerk. The little spinster lost her breath and balance, toppled for a moment on her toes and then sank struggling down upon the fat man's lap.

The fat man gasped and the spinster gave an awful cry of consternation and reached for the floor. But there was no floor! Every inch of space was covered by the feet of the determined passengers. The moment she sat down they had spread out over her space. Then she blushed. Some people looked her way and laughed, but nobody moved. She couldn't wedge her knees down from the altitude they had assumed at the first lurch.

She continued to struggle and strain to reach a strap, while the fat man sat helpless with that energetic mite of femininity going through the jiu jitsu exercises on his knees. At the next station more people got on and the fight of the lone spinster became more difficult and desperate.

Flesh and blood, even 300 pounds strong, could stand it no longer. Like a mountain rising and casting off the small cities on its surface, the ponderous one rose and pushed the sardine-like passengers out of his magic circle. The spinster slid off his knee like a drop of water off a duck.

"Madam," said the fat man, lifting his hat gravely, "will you do me the honor to take my seat?"

"Well, it's about time!" snapped the ruffled little spinster ungratefully. — New York Press.

A Traveling Man Does An Indecent Thing

Wisconsin, 1920

A Traveling Man Gets Into Trouble

Plymouth Review — A young lady, whose name we shall withhold because she was entirely innocent of the slightest wrong-doing, was accosted by a traveling man from Milwaukee, on the highway between this city and Greenbush one day last week.

She was driving towards her home while the Milwaukee traveling man was just ahead of her in an automobile. He stopped the machine and got out of it as if to make some adjustment. As she drove up, he asked the young lady whether she was going to Greenbush. Thinking that the question was impertinent she did not reply, when he stepped away from his auto and did an indecent thing.

At this the young lady turned her horse around and started back towards Plymouth. She stopped at a house and reported what had happened and a gentleman went in pursuit of the malefactor. The young lady accompanied him as she had taken the number of his auto. The auto was standing in front of the Stannard store at the village of Greenbush. While someone went after the young lady's father the traveling man drove to Glenbeulah. Here an officer got into the car with him and they came to Plymouth. The only justice of the peace was out of the city and the police justice has no jurisdiction over a criminal act committed outside the city. The parties went before some attorney and the traveling man paid a certain sum.

We have failed to state that the young lady was accosted twice by the traveling man.

If the story is true and there seems to be no reason to doubt it, the miscreant got off rather lightly. He is said to be a young man about twenty-five years of age, and his experience may be sufficient to deter him from repeating an act of that kind.

—The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, WI, Sept. 25, 1920, p. 4.