In the 1920s, silent film star Rudolph Valentino was all the rage. The wild popularity of his movies The Sheik and Son of the Sheik seeped into everyday life and language. Soon, the term sheik became common slang for a ladies’ man, just as a sheba described the female version.

Rudolph Valentino, the original sheik

In the great city of Chicago lived a man named Fred W. Keetch. He was well-known to the city’s underworld and, in 1922, Chicago’s underworld was thriving.  Between 1870 and 1900, the city had grown by 500%. The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 had brought Chicago international acclaim. With so much growth and so much possibility, the city was a beacon to enterprising people all over the world.

Fred Keetch was a shadowy character. He loved to call himself a sheik. Already this gives us a picture of Fred. It’s one thing if other people referred to him as a ladies man or a sheik. But to give himself such a nickname is another matter.

It’s not really surprising that a sheik like Keetch would be known to keep memoranda about all the women he dated. Or that he would find it necessary to carry what he called his “little red love book” on his person at all times.

Two days after Christmas, police were summoned to a dingy second-hand store. On the floor lay the body of Fred W. Keetch, with his love book beside him. He was, so the papers said, “the victim of a midnight murder.”

How Keetch had come to die on the floor of this squalid little store was a mystery. So was the identity of the person who put a bullet in his heart. The police poured over the only clue at the scene: Keetch’s love book.

“It’s not unlikely, say detectives working on the case, that one of the “love women” listed in the love book fired for jealousy’s sake the fatal shot,” the Bismarck Tribune wrote.

The press printed a few passages from the love book:

Mabel. 
Call– Address–
Home on Monday and Friday nights.
Blond.
Can sing.
Good for dress parties.

Evelyn. 
Hair dyed.
Divorcee.
No phone.
Can make you laugh.

Grace.
Husband on the road.
Has private stock of her own.
Will go out at any time, night or day.

Dolly.
Call— Address—
Good dancer.
Needs lots of coin.

I found myself feeling more compassionate toward these “love women” after wondering how Keetch would have described me. Maybe something along these lines:

Kimberly. 
Can’t sing or dance
Occasionally amusing
Shiftless
Should never be taken to a dress party

Keetch had, as the papers noted, lost his game of hearts. But that is all the information I could find about him or his murder. Probably the police were right and one of these women did him in. In any case, one glimpse into his little red love book assures us it was only a matter of time until someone took out this foolish sheik.

Nevertheless, it was a miserable end for Keetch. So, in his honor, I’ll share what was no doubt his favorite song– the 1921 hit, The Sheik of Araby.