Eleanor, Santa Claus and Serafina
Christmas with America's First Lady
| Part 1 of 1 |
Release Date: December 9, 2025
A Santa letter to Mrs. Roosevelt
With Christmas of 1937 just two weeks away, 11-year-old Serafina Squicciarini was getting nervous. Her parents, Angelo and Maria, were like a lot of recent immigrants, and a lot of native-born Americans, as well. They were struggling and had been for a while.
The Great Depression had been dragging on for eight long years, and during those years, the Squicciarini family had grown from just Serafina and her parents, to Serafina and her three little sisters, Madeline, Anita and Angela. And as the oldest sister, Serafina wanted to make sure her sisters had something to celebrate come Christmas.
So, she wrote a letter, not to Santa Claus, but to the one person she believed could deliver a happy Christmas to her family: Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s first lady.
“I write this letter because I want help from you. Santa Claus is here. I am worried. I don’t think Santa will come to my house because we are so poor. I am turning to you because you are kind to the poor.” 1
And Mrs. Roosevelt didn’t let Serafina down.
A few days after Christmas, a radio patrol car from the Brooklyn Police Department arrived out front of the Squicciarini’s apartment to take Serafina and her sisters to a special Christmas event put on by the Brooklyn Juvenile Aid Bureau, an organization which provided recreation and support for children, especially to those who might fall through the cracks.
Kids like them.
When they walked into the party and joined the other 450 children already in attendance, Seraphina and her sisters were welcomed like movie stars, “camera’s flashed and children applauded.” 2
And then came Santa with the gifts. Seraphina and her sisters were given dolls, but also new shoes and stockings, holiday foods and even a tricycle.
It was, by all accounts, a wonderful Christmas party, and one for which Serafina was certainly grateful, to the police and the Brooklyn Juvenile Aid Bureau, to Santa Claus, but most especially to her champion and America’s First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who was always kind to the poor.
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The Nashville Santa Stories
Six decades after Clement Moore published his epic Christmas poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas, another story found its way to Nashville, TN, and the result was nothing short of magical.
It all began on December 8, 1883, and each December as the days shorten and the year winds itself toward its quiet end, a little magic returns to this space as we revisit one of my favorite historical Christmas tales – The Nashville Santa Stories.
May this seasonal lost & found series bring joy to you this holiday season, and many more to come!
The First Lady on Christmas
“One thing I think we should all remember no matter how busy we are, Christmas was meant to bring us a spirit of calm. The shepherds would never have heard the angels if they had not been sitting in calm and quiet watching their flocks. So, sometime on Christmas Eve, let us try to clear our spirit to be in a receptive mood for the Christmas message.” 3
“I certainly do believe in telling children to believe in Santa Claus. They learn soon enough that Santa Claus is mother or father, or some other kind person. Why not let them have the joy of believing that Santa Claus does come to all children and that he is such a jolly old saint?” 4
“The spirit of giving, however, I feel has been stressed ever since Dickens wrote his “Christmas Carol.” Sometimes I think today we have come to think of giving very largely from the point of view of giving of our worldly possessions. Even if we can give little, it must be something tangible. Perhaps we have stressed this particular angle sufficiently. There is one other angle of giving that we might stress a little more, the desire and the ability to give of oneself.” 5
Eleanor writes a Christmas book
By Christmas of 1940, World War II was raging across much of Europe, and although the United States wouldn’t enter the fight for another year, the line between good and evil had already been drawn for most Americans adults.
With the hope of making that line more clear for America’s children, as well, Eleanor Roosevelt decided to write a book. And not just any book, but a Christmas book.
Simply titled, “Christmas: A Story”, the 42-page pocket-size publication told the story of Marta, a little girl in worn-torn Holland, and her experiences over two “St. Nicholas’s Eves – the first with her father on home leave from the war in 1939, the second with him dead a year later.
In the introduction, Eleanor acknowledged the difficulty young readers might have with the subject matter, but justified the need for it, nonetheless:
“The times are so serious that even children should be made to understand that there are vital differences in people’s beliefs which lead to differences in behavior. 6
And those differences were front and center in the storyline, like when Marta encountered a mysterious cloaked stranger on the deserted street:
“She was not exactly afraid of the stranger, for she was a brave little girl, but she felt a sense of chill creeping through her, for there was something awe-inspiring and rather repellent about this personage who simply stood in the gloom watching her.
Finally he spoke: “What are you doing here, little girl?”
Very much in awe, Marta responded: “I came out to make sure that the Christ Child’s candle would shine out to guide His footsteps to our house.”
“You must not believe in any such legend,” remonstrated the tall, dark man. “There is no Christ Child. That is a story which is told for the weak. It is ridiculous to believe that a little child could lead the people of the world, a foolish idea claiming strength through love and sacrifice. You must grow up and acknowledge only one superior, he who dominates the rest of the world through fear and strength.”
Despite the popularity and celebrity of its author, “Christmas: A Story” never became a Christmas classic. Instead, it remained exactly what it was meant to be – a book for the coming moment, a call to action at a time when the world was facing unfathomable evil.
A reminder to believe.
“This little story, I hope, will appeal enough to children so that they will read it and as they grow older, they may understand that the love, and peace and gentleness typified by the Christ Child, leads us to a way of life for which we must all strive.”
Coming Next week
Next week I’ll be delivering my annual Christmas story, a historically accurate but fictional retelling of a true story. This year’s Lost & Found Christmas story, The Stocking on Car No. 7 may just be my favorite bit of historical fiction writing yet!
Copyright 2025 Lori Olson White
| Part 1 of 1 |
The Story Catalog is not an archive in the usual sense. What you’ll find here is a living catalog of Lost & Found Stories – deeply researched historical narratives told in parts, discovered through newspapers, letters, court records, logs, and the stubborn human habit of leaving traces behind.
Have you read the incredible true story of Aimee Henry and Mary Martha Parker? Call Me a Bastard is my longest serialized story to-date, and the one that started it all here on the Lost & Found Story Box. Check out the story from the beginning.
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End Notes
1 “Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt to Bring Santa to Child,” The New York Times, New York, NY December 28, 1937.
2 “Girl’s Note to Mrs. Roosevelt Brings Visit by Santa Claus at Belated Police Here,” The New York Times, New York, NY, December 31, 1937.
3 Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day, December 25, 1940,” The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition, 2017
4 “Tell Children Santa Lives, Mrs. Roosevelt Advises,” New York Times, New York, NY, November 25, 194.
5 Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day, December 25, 1937,” The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017)
6 Eleanor Roosevelt, “Christmas: A Story,” Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 1940.
Beautiful Lori. I have read a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and it clearly showed she was a very kind person and a wonderful First Lady.
Really lovely, Lori. I’d like to find a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt to dig more deeply into her influence and her actions.
As difficult as today’s world is, I cannot imagine what living through 8 years of the Depression and then WWII must have been like.