Ida May Love Went to Sea as 'Dan McArdle'

Puget Sound can boast not only of many gallant sailor boys but of one sailor girl, who has succumbed to sea-fever, who is never so happy as when she is rolling on the bounding waves, and whose physique readily adapts itself to the nautical calling. She is not content with sailing on a mere merchant ship, but served seven weeks on the United States coast defense vessel Monterey, over which 'Big Betsy' grins as the biggest of guns. She also claims to have served on other ships of the American navy, but — alas — the young damsel is frail and has an imagination which carries her aboard ships whose decks she has never trod. Still she has the proud distinction of being the only woman of the present day known to have actually served on board a warship and to have worn her disguise so well as to deceive all the officers except the few who were in the secret.

The girl was born at St. Cloud, Minn., about fifteen years ago, and the first name she bore was Ida May Lovewood. Her father died when she was but 3 years old and she was adopted by a couple named Bunt, whose name she took. Six years ago the Bunt family moved to Whatcom, and last May the girl, still a child in years, married a brick mason named F. J. Love. But she had always had a passion for the sea and for assuming masculine attire, and could not settle down to the prosaic bliss of married life. Thus it was that last August she deserted her husband for the free life of the sea, and donning the clothes of an apprentice went on board the Monterey, only three officers and three or four seamen knowing her secret.

The rumor had been abroad for several days that there was a woman among the crew of the Monterey, and the Post-Intelligencer, with some difficulty, discovered that it had a basis of truth — and that the fair lover of Neptune had taken to dry land again at this port. After a rollicking, sailor-like time she had gone to the Big Rock dance hall at Leavenworth, 151 miles east of Seattle on the Great Northern railroad, where frail women, bad whisky and gamblers join forces to relieve railroad men and miners of all their cash, surplus or otherwise. The girl's abode was no sooner located than a Post-Intelligencer reporter was dispatched to see her, and the paper's special artist quickly followed to obtain a picture of the sailor girl of Puget Sound.

At Leavenworth the girl was found in a stuffy little room adjoining the Big Rock dance hall and saloon. For several days she had been suffering from indisposition, and it was thought she had lung fever. She was glad that a visitor had called. Although it is claimed that she is but 18 years old, she looks to be about 20, and she claims she is 24. She is of slight build, weighing about 135 pounds, and is as well muscled as any athletic young fellow. Her face is a study. She has a very boyish appearance, and her features are sharply outlined and would attract attention anywhere. While not handsome, she is not bad looking, although her coal-black hair, which is cut short, and her piercing black eyes and high cheek bones suggest a strain of Cherokee blood. Her hands are large and calloused, indicating their familiarity with tarred rope and nails, and from her feet one would imagine she hails from the Windy City: she wears a No. 8 man's shoe, and is somewhat proud of the distinction. She continually talked about 'us boys' and 'the gang,' and, finding that her visitor was from Seattle, was anxious to know about 'Callahan,' 'Jack o' the Dust' and some of the other sailors on the Monterey.

'I have been a sailor, and I wish I was back in the navy instead of in this God-forsaken hole,' she said. 'Why did I leave? I got tired of seeing nothing but water, and I went ashore for repairs.'

She told how, as a girl in St. Cloud, she had pined to run out on the gale into the gallant life of a man-o'-war, and how at Whatcom she haunted the water front, dressing up in the uniform and 'playing California Jack' every time a ship came into port — only to be refused and laughed at. 'I wanted to be a deep sea sailor or none at all,' she said. 'How my heart beat when one day the Monterey came into harbor. I stayed up on the hill all one day and watched the other fellows on board. It was an easy matter for me to make the acquaintance of a sailor from the ship. He said for me to go aboard and make application to ship.'

She followed the vessel to Port Angeles. 'I presented myself to the officer of the deck. When I told him that I wanted to ship he asked me what kind of a boy I would make. I told him I was daisy; not one of those kind that grow in the pasture and is walked on by the cows, but a regular Marguerite, like the kind that come from the hot-house. That settled it, and, taking me below, he told the man on watch to call Callahan. In a few moments Callahan reported with an extra uniform. The officer told me to try it on. You ought to have seen him when I came out. He said: "Why, you do make a fine boy; go to the surgeon and be examined."' She was rated as an apprentice and put on the starboard watch.

'No, only three officers knew I was a girl. All the rest thought I was a pretty husky kid, able to take care of myself, and you just bet I did take care of myself.' She laughed over a visit paid to the ship at San Francisco by an old lady and her daughter Alice, whom she escorted over the vessel and flirted with so successfully that she was invited to the family's house for an evening. 'A woman says she isn't vain, but she's the next thing to a jelly fish... All you got to do is to swell their heads about their beauty and they'll come right to you.' Alice wrote twice; the letters were kept and then burned.

Transferred from the Monterey to the Independence and then to the Mohican, she stood lookout and once sang out 'There blows three points off our weather bow!' at the sight of a whale, only to be told that on a warship he would 'go to the brig' for such a hail. She was made a coal passer. 'We were always at sea, and I soon got tired of seeing nothing but water. We finally came back to San Francisco, but only stayed there a short time, when we came to Seattle. I was getting tired of the sea by this time, and when I got liberty in Seattle us kids went ashore and enjoyed ourselves. We were fourteen days ashore, and we would have been court-martialed if we had gone back. Callahan and Schofield went aboard like but champs. I got some civ's clothes, hung around Seattle and came here.'

At this point 'Crap' Burke, who presides at the crap table in the Big Rock saloon, entered the room and made himself at home, and the girl discontinued her story.

The girl's account was so full of improbabilities that corroboration was sought. 'Billy' Fiske, a sailor on the Mohican, said that 'Billy' Root, the plumber on the Monterey, had told him the girl turned up at Port Angeles in the summer, that Root got a uniform for her and smuggled her aboard, keeping her in the plumber's room as his assistant. 'Nearly all of the other fellows thought she was a boy... The officer of the deck was the only one to call the roll, and the girl always answered to the name of Dan McArdle.' Root, growing afraid the officers would 'take a tumble,' sent her ashore at Seattle. Schofield, an apprentice, met her, 'got stuck on her,' broke his liberty and is now in the brig. 'The girl is a cuckoo,' Fiske said. 'You can't believe half she says.'

Mrs. W. B. Bokow, a Salvation Army worker living at 1734 Thirteenth street, is a sister of the deserted husband. 'Frank, my brother, did everything in his power to please her, but she would continually annoy him by not attending to her household duties, and she would persist in putting on his clothes,' she said. 'His efforts were of no avail, and they separated last August. She was arrested with a lot of sailors a short time ago, but she promised the chief of police she would go to work for me if he would let her go. I kept her then for several days, but she would not work, saying she was not doing woman's work. Then she went away again, and I have since heard she was in Leavenworth. I think something should be done by the state officials to put her in a place of refuge.'