‘Sally’ tune led to clever story

Who was Sally? When I read a March 1, 1925, story in The Oklahoman, I wanted to know.

She must have been important, because the unnamed reporter checked with several prominent Oklahoma City citizens trying to find out where she was. It turns out the reporter came up with a clever story.

“Where’s Sally?

“From bank presidents down to messenger boys, they’re hunting for her through dark alleys, up the main highways, to directors’ meetings and on the schoolground, comes the pitiful wail, ‘Please bring her back to me.’

“Among city business men, it isn’t a question of who she is, They know. And they want to find her. So they dream, and hunt, and memory brings back the pleasant times they spent planning the future — with Sally — if only Sally hadn’t deserted them.

“But Sally is gone. So John Fields, vice president of the Farmers’ National bank, removes his stogie and whistles, ‘I wonder what’s become of Sally,’ while his eye moves a picture of how she would look all dressed up in Washington.

“Politicians muse on what a glorious figure she would make on top of the capitol dome they would have given the state.

“Ed Overholser believes she’d make a great chamber of commerce president.

“T.P. Martin would give her a place as pilot on the air mail route.

“Fred Suits seeks for her in the union station; Governor Trapp believes she is in the Darlington narcotic house; W.F. Vahlberg thinks she took his plans for a new city hall with her; Alva McDonald has a hunch that she has joined John Wilkes Booth, and hopes she led the seekers after his job with her.

“But the garbage man is the only one who has seen her since she left the city, for he’s stopped whistling, ‘Yes we have no bananas,’ and assures the world that Sally is headed for the dump heap.”

It took me a search on Google to find out who Sally was.

She was Sally Long, a Ziegfield Follies dancer who was the inspiration for the popular 1924 song titled ‘I Wonder What’s Become of Sally?’

“I wonder what’s become of Sally,

“That old gal of mine.

“The sunshine’s missing from our alley,

“Ever since the day Sally went away.

“No matter where she is,

“Whatever she may be,

“If no one wants her now,

“Please send her back to me.

“I’ll always welcome back my Sally,

“That old gal of mine.”

Alva McDonald was a U.S. marshal, W.F. Vahlberg was a member of the city board of commissioners, T.P. Martin was on the chamber of commerce’s aviation committee and Fred Suits was an attorney representing supporters for a railroad union station.

I guess I’m still wondering why they were wondering where Sally was.

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