The Hanford Farmer Who Wrote a Wartime Hit
C. F. Whaley of Ballygreen Farm penned the words to “Every Girl Who Has a Heart Loves a Soldier,” with music by Madame Schumann-Heink’s accompanist—and the profits went to the Red Cross.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
C. F. Whaley, of the Ballygreen Farm at Hanford, stopped in Richland a few hours Wednesday. Mr. Whaley is winning an enviable reputation as a song-writer, having composed the words to one of the latest song hits, “Every Girl Who Has a Heart Loves a Soldier.” Miss Katherine Hoffman, accompanist for the famous contralto Madame Schumann-Heink, composed the music, and already 20,000 copies of the song have been sold, a large part of the profits being turned over to the Red Cross fund by the owners of the piece. Mr. Whaley has just completed the words to a lullaby which Madame Schumann-Heink will use on her tour this season.
“Mr. Whaley is winning an enviable reputation as a song-writer, having composed the words to one of the latest song hits, “Every Girl Who Has a Heart Loves a Soldier.””
Then as now, the Tri-Cities’ isolation was no bar to national reach: a Hanford farmer’s lyric landed with a famous contralto and raised money for the Red Cross. The story is a reminder that local creative work has long travelled outward—and that wartime charity was often organized through the same small-town networks that still hold the region together.
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