From the May 8, 1925 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Mrs. Mary Hannigan of 83 Division Ave. today mourned the death of her daughter, Julia, the little girl who wanted to be a boy. And she is filled with bitterness because, she said, her daughter died of a broken heart, not the pneumonia listed on the death certificate at St. Catherine’s Hospital.

Too much notoriety killed the little girl, the mother says. The notoriety was gained by what the mother describes as an ‘innocent prank.’ Julia, who was buried on Saturday, decided last October that she wanted to be a boy. She disappeared from her home. A week later she was found. She had cut her hair, donned boy’s clothing and earned her living caddying.

But the little girl brooded over what she thought was the disgrace she had brought on her family. Her resistance was weakened. She caught a cold a short time ago which developed into pneumonia.”