Yes, Virginia, There IS a Santa Claus

Watch Video! “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” 2 min. 27 sec.

Those seven little words, written more than 110 years ago to a little girl from Manhattan’s West Ninety-Fifth Street, have taken on legendary proportions.

The story begins in 1897, when Virginia O’Hanlon, the daughter of Dr. Philip O’Hanlon, a coroner’s assistant on the Upper West Side, wrote the following letter to the editors of the now defunct New York Sun newspaper:

“Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?”

The now famous response, (watch video) penned by veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, appeared on the editorial page of The Sun on September 21, 1897, under the headline “Is There a Santa Claus?” Though the unsigned editorial ran in the page’s eighth slot, below even a piece extolling the newly invented “chainless bicycle,” it has gone on to become the most reprinted editorial ever run in any English language newspaper. Now an indelible part of U.S. Christmas lore, the editorial’s message was incredibly moving to many readers at the time of its publication, and remains so to this day.

For his part, Church remained anonymous with respect to his famous editorial until after his death in 1906. Many claimed that The Sun reprinted the piece every Christmas until it folded in 1949, but history tells a different story. American University professor Dr. W. Joseph Campbell recently revealed that the paper resisted reader requests to reprint the piece for more than a decade, and did so reluctantly even then. It was only in the 1920s that the famous editorial became an annual staple.

That didn’t stop Virginia O’Hanlon (later Douglas) from becoming something of a minor celebrity. Until her death in 1971, Virginia was interviewed by news media all over the country year after year during the holiday season, and received countless letters from admirers. A school principal by career, with a doctorate from Fordham University, Virginia felt the piece had been a positive influence in her life.

“The older I grow, the more I realize what a perfect philosophy it is for life,” she told an interviewer from CBC radio in 1963.

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