I suspect everyone reading this has come across the story about the eight year old girl who wrote to a newspaper asking if there really was a Santa Claus and the famous editorial that resulted from that letter. During our junior year in high school when we did the morning show over the public address system as the Irregulars, Maryann Shellhamer read that editorial for one of our Christmas programs.

But how many of you can name the writer of that editorial?

The Commonplace Fun Facts blog dug beneath the surface and went into the full history of that letter and response, and even answered the question of whatever became of Virginia.

In September 1897, an eight-year-old girl named Virginia O’Hanlon began wondering whether Santa Claus was real. She was hardly the first child to grapple with this particular existential crisis, and her experience initially followed a familiar script. Some friends said yes. Others said no. Parents, almost universally, said yes—though suspiciously, so did the parents of the children insisting Santa was fake.

So who was she supposed to believe?

That’s where Virginia’s story diverges from nearly every other child’s, and in doing so gave us one of the most enduring—and unexpectedly thoughtful—pieces of Christmas tradition ever printed. Her father offered advice that was, in retrospect, the most 19th-century solution imaginable: if it appeared in the newspaper, it must be true.

We’re not sure which detail here is more endearingly old-fashioned—Virginia’s earnest curiosity about Santa Claus, or her father’s unshakable faith in mass media. We’ll let you debate that during Christmas dinner, preferably right after someone says, “I read this online.” Imagine placing that much trust in a newspaper today. People now distrust weather forecasts while standing in the rain. But in 1897, print carried a kind of moral authority. Ink didn’t just report the truth; it installed it.

Following her father’s advice, Virginia wrote a letter to The New York Sun asking a straightforward question: was Santa Claus real? The answer appeared in print for the entire world to read, beginning with seven words that would echo through generations of Christmases:

“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Read the whole piece, it’s well worth your time:

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (And in 1897 He Was Still Under Construction)