Who were the men who married this fun, smart, determined, engaging whirlwind who would become Sally Stanford?
Fansler
#1 – LeeRoy Deforest FANSLER (1897 – 1979) – married June 6, 1918. In Santa Paula, Ventura County, California. He was 20, she was a month past her 15th birthday. Within a few months, he would start annulment proceedings, as it seems she’d fled Santa Paula for Oregon shortly after the wedding.
Goodan
#2 – Daniel C. GOODAN (1894 – 1939) – With ex-con Dan, she left southern Oregon, and travelled through California en route to his home state of of Colorado in the spring of 1920. When they were arrested for possession of stolen goods, convicted, and sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary in July, 1920, she gave her name as Mrs. GOODAN but soon declared that they had never married (and she wanted no more to do with Mr. GOODAN!).
Byham
#3 – Ralph R. BYHAM (1895/6 – 1953) – married in Los Angeles, 4 August, 1925. A husband of so little importance to Sally, she didn’t even mention him in her autobiography. The marriage itself was significant in that it was never officially terminated (until Ralph’s death, a suicide, on about June 23, 1953), when made her subsequent three marriages bigamist.
Spagnoli
#4 – Ernest SPAGNOLI (1886/87 – 1972) – married in Ventura, CA on March 13, 1927. Marriage was rocky but withstood legal difficulties in 1932-32. Then Ernest sues for annulment April 25, 1933 (grounds: she had never divorced Byham); final decree filed and docketed May 11, 1933.
Rapp
# 5 – Louis Samuel RAPP (~1898 – 1973) – married in Hollywood, Los Angeles County on November 4, 1934 (they both claim its their first marriage; he’s a salesman, she’s a model). Divorce suit begins in January 1941; is final in February 1943.
Gump
#6 – Robert “Bob” Livingston GUMP (1905-1981) – black sheep son of the upscale San Francisco retail family, Bob had lived in the Los Angeles area before he and Sally decided to get married in April, 1951, and separate in December of the same year. Divorce proceedings begin in January 1952.
Kenna
#7 – Robert “Big Bob” KENNA (1914- 1970) – married in Las Vegas, January 13 (14?) 1954. Five months later, in June, they separate, and Sally places a legal notice in the San Francisco Chronicle declaring she is not responsible for any debts except her own. During the two years of their marriage, they file divorce suits and counter suits, and then reconcile. Interlocutory divorce is recorded in January 1956; final divorce decree registered October 30, 1957. Ladies man Kenna, formerly head of his family’s central California trucking firm, worked as a manager of Sally’s Valhalla, and possibly the Gaslight bar. After their divorce, he ran several bars in San Francisco, was accused of swindling a rich widow of her money, and eventually moved south to Los Gatos, with his new wife.
Sally would remain unmarried for the final 25 years of her life. (That’s not to say there was no romance in her life. Gossip columnists alluded to her crush on a retired baseball player who tended bar for her at a Tenderloin after-hours joint.)