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READER
BROS.
At Christmas play,
and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes
but once a year.
—Tusser
%
BRONSON
WATER
DELIVERY
The Original Virginia
A Grandma Now, She Still Believes In Santa Claus
By ARLENE WOLF
(iT*) Newsfeatures Writer
NEW YORK — Once upon a
time, more than two score years
ago, there was a pretty little blue
eyed girl named Virginia O’Han
lon, who wrote a letter to the edi
tor of the New York Sun and
asked for the truth about Santa j
Claus. The editor wrote back:!
“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa ^
"DEAR VIRGINIA' . . .
Dr. Laura V. Douglas
Claus”—a letter that since has
been quoted thousands of times.
Today, Virginia is quite grown
up. And she still believes in Santa
“more than ever.”
Now Dr. Laura V. Douglas. Vir
ginia looks just as you'd expect
the adult Virginia to look—rather
like a storybook fairy godmother,
with soft while hair, laughing
SANTA RESIDES AT
NOME COAST GUARD
STATION! ?
John Perouika, CM2/c, Petty
Officer in charge of the local
Nome Coast Guard Station, re
ceived the following letter from
a small city in the Mohawk
Valley in New York state:
To Santa Claus,
Via Officer in Charge
U.S.C.G. Station,
North Pole,
Nome, Alaska.
Dear Sir and Boys:
I have two boys who are
driving me craxy about Santa
Claus. They know he is some
where up around the North
Pole, and the nearest I could
get to write to him, is you and
your boys.
Please don't disappoint these
two boys. Send them a letter,
just as if it were from Santa, to
convince them that there is
such a man around.
We all wish you a very
Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year.
Yours truly,
S. Rees and Family.
(Ed. Note—Needless to say
Mr. Peroutka very obligingly
assumed the role of Santa for
the occasion).
k_
! crinkles around her twinkling
blue eyes, and a generous soft
smile.
She’s a grandmother, and would
rather talk about her three beau
tiful grandchildren than anything
else in the world.
“That’s the baby, Mary,” she’ll
say, taking a photograph off her
bookcase in the New York City
public school where she is assist
ant principal in charge. “Mary’s
two and a half. Catherine’s three
and a half, and she’s really jnuch
prettier than the picture., And
here’s Jimmy, he’s five, and the
best believer in Santa Claus that
ever lived. He can barely live
from Christmas to Christmas.”
When she was a little girl, Dr.
Douglas recalls, eight-year-olds
were much younger than they are
now.
"My daughter started worrying
about Santa Claus when she was
seven/' she says, "and wanted to
know why Santa Claus had to use
reindeer when an automobile or
airplane would get him around
much faster."
Virginia remembers now that
the whole affair of the letter put
her in line for quite a lot of teas
ing. Of course, whenever the ques
tion about Santa Claus came up,
she could always point to Francis
P. Church’s editorial and prove
there was a Santa. But her friends
twitted her about it, and for quite
a while, eight-year-old Virginia
didn’t appreciate what it said . . .
"Santa exists as certainly as
love and generosity and devotion
exist. . . . Thank God, he lives,
and lives forever."
Now, may years later, the
grown up Virginia understands.
Happy Holidays
May we give you a few lines
from the Poet Whittier to express
our Holiday Greetings to you:
For somehow, noc only for Christmas
But all the long year through.
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to yOU)
And the mere jeu in blessing
The poor and the lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
?.i:urns to ana!;e you glad.
PIONEER
WATER
DELIVERY