Whether verses have appeared in performance has tended to be a matter of performer's choice and maybe the occasion. In what tended to become the main standard popular song form, the arrangement was usually:

Verse, chorus, chorus, bridge, chorus.

(a single verse often being followed by several repeats of the ccbc sections).

The verses (especially in those of the great classic songwriters) tended to be melodically and harmonically more sophisticated than the chorus (not in the current case), and given that and the relative frequency of verse to chorus, it's the chorus of the songs that people (in general) remember as the song. So the verses are often omitted, bands/singers launching straight into the chorus (or as in the Jelly Roll Recording I have - Chicago, Dec 16, 1926, Victor BVE 37257-3 - playing a 4-bar (IIRC) intro and them launching into the chorus).

Not everyone missed them out of course. They were played as introductions by bands and sang by singers, just not always.

In a 1926 recording, they may also have been aware of time limits on the recording and decided to stick with the more popular chorus only.

Mick