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Show Salt Lake Tribune, 28 October 1911, p. 16 WOMAN PASSES FOR YEARS AS A MAN “William” H, Cleery, Salt Lake Shoemaker, Finally Divulges Identity. PREFERS MALE ATTIRE Has Made Success in Business, but Is Ready to Don Skirts. Hundreds of citizens of Salt Lake who have for many years patronized “William” H. Cleery, shoemaker in the basement of 50 South Main Street will be greatly surprised to learn that the quiet unassuming little cobbler is a woman. After a disguise maintained for a score of years with a very few in the secret, the woman divulged the secret yesterday. “Yes, I am a woman,” she admitted last night to a Tribune reporter. “For twenty years I have worn male attire and for eleven years of that time I have conducted shoemaking shops in Main street of this city. Few if any guessed the secret of my identity until on an Ashton avenue street car the other night I saw that several passengers had in some manner discovered the fact that I am a woman. I then resolved to resume female attire when I again went on the streets.” And true to her newly-formed determination she went early yesterday morning to a number of downtown stores and purchased several dresses and the other garments which go with milady’s toilet. “I really enjoyed the long deferred feminine pleasure of shopping,” she said, although the salesgirls did look at me rather curiously and I made purchases seldom made by male customers.” Girl Learns Shoemaking. Eva McCleery, as the woman was known before she doffed the feminine name with the garments of the sex, is nearly 60 years old. She was born in Liverpool and while a young girl learned the trade of shoemaking. She worked at the trade while in England and, coming to America thirtyfive years ago, still followed that line of work. “I worked a number of years in this city as a shoemaker, she said. In reviewing her career “I worked in the Third ward and afterward in the Eleventh ward. About twenty years ago, in a spirit of curiosity, I put on men’s clothing. I found that I could work so much better at the bench unhampered by my skirts, that I continued the practice. It soon became second nature to me and I discarded female attire altogether.” Mrs. McCleery talks entertainingly of her efforts to live up to her self-imposed role. “I learned to smoke,” she said with a shudder, recalling her early struggles to overcome a woman’s repugnance to the weed. “I practiced coarsening my voice and tried to cultivate a taste for manly pursuits and amusements.” Disguise Nearly Perfect. So well did she learn her part that eighteen years ago, she secured a position at the state university as instructor in the industrial department and held that position two years without the slightest suspicion of her masquerade being aroused. She then went to Ogden and for five years taught the students of the Deaf and Blind Institute the shoemaker’s trade. For this long period of time she was in daily contact with students and instructors without the question of her sex being even suspected. When the Metcalf administration of the school was succeeded by the present one, Mrs. McCleery returned to Salt Lake. A shoemaker, who conducted a shop in the basement of the Utah National bank building, had just left the city and the woman, still in the guise of a man, rented the place and set up business for herself. I continued at this location for six years” said Mrs. McCleery” and built up a good business for herself. “I do good work,” she added proudly. “I am not afraid to put my work in competition with the best men-shoemakers in the country.” After six years at her location, the woman-cobbler moved into the basement of 46 South Main street and spent three years there, removing two years ago to her present location [50 South?]. Good Looking “Man.” Mrs. McCleery makes rather an attractive appearance in men’s clothing. Her gray hair, worn rather long, is brushed back from a face which has been touched but lightly by the passage of time. He[r] slight and slender figure is perfectly erect and neatly clad in a business suit, and she creates the impression of being what she really is – a business “man” of standing in the community. Mrs. McCleery has had many interesting experiences with other women while posing as a man. She naively admits that quite a few times the gentler sex have fallen desperately in love with the quiet-spoken little cobbler. “Just a fortnight ago”, said she, “I became acquainted with a woman who became quite smitten with me and gave me repeated invitations to call.” But all levity is abandoned and the little woman is quite serious when she discussed her future. “I prefer wearing male attire but if there is any objection from anyone I will never again don trousers”, she says. “Dr. Mary Walker and other women are permitted to wear men’s clothing and I don’t see why anybody should object if I should, but I am ready to give up that form of dress if anyone objects.” And with just a little quiver of the lip and a suspicion of a tear in her eyes, the elderly woman concluded: “But I beg permission to dress as I please while at work at my bench.” |
