Sheet music tribute to
Will and Wiley surfaces

CLAREMORE (OK) — The piano Doris King’s parents bought for her in about 1950 still sits in her living room. The variety of sheet music that came with it had long since been boxed up and put way. Until recently. Mrs. King, who has relocated from the Philadelphia suburbs to Pocono Mountain, was going through the music and found music written as a farewell tribute to Will Rogers and Wiley Post after their Aug. 15, 1935 plane crash. It is autographed by the author and composer, Emil E. Hornung. Ironically she sent the original music to the Will Rogers Museums just a month before the anniversary of that crash. “I’ve had it for some time,” Mrs. King said, but decided to go through the box to see if there was anything that should be passed on to others. “The timing is perfect,” said Michelle Lefebvre-Carter, Will Rogers Memorial Museums executive director. “As we area approaching the 70th anniversary of Will Rogers and Wiley Post’s untimely death and a memorial fly-in marking that occasion, it is remarkable to have received Emil E. Hornung’s sheet music manuscript, copywritten in 1936. It will become a part of the Museum archives and incorporated into the anniversary ceremony.” The music is autographed to “Miss Elsie Gonser from Your Uncle Emil E. Hornung,” and is titled “Farewell to Both of You.” Mrs. King knows nothing about the author, but felt it was fitting the music be in the museum. Hornung is listed in the Penn State Libraries Song Titles in the Music Library of the Fred Waring Collection under “Remember our Heros” as a music title. The author-composer, using photos of the two men on the cover of the music wrote “Both gave their lives to their country and fellow-man Aug. 15, 1935 near Point Barrow, Alaska.” These words also appear on the cover: “Farewell to both of you Your ideals so dear — so true Tho from us you are now gone To the land for us yet unknown In our memory you set a precious stone Therein you live forever on. Until the day we hear the call To that road we must travel all. Where in happiness, we meet again Till then we say — Auf Wiedersehn.”