[On Christmas Day 2009, I posted what I labeled “Arguably the most famous editorial ever written.” It contained the line, now world famous: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!”
[The column ran in the New York Sun of 21 September 1897 and was editor and editorial writer Francis Pharcellus Church’s reply to 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon’s letter asking “Is there a Santa Claus?”
[Below, I’m posting three news stories about a later Christmas letter, this one from 1907 from 10-year-old Mary McGann (later McGahan; 1897-1979). As you’ll read, the letter to Santa was recovered by Peter Mattaliano (b. 1949) from a Hell’s Kitchen fireplace in 1999.
“‘CHRISTMAS
SPIRIT PERSONIFIED’:
by Dana
Jacobson
[This report was broadcast on CBS This Morning (the predecessor of CBS Mornings), a feature of CBS News, on 23 December 2016 (Man finds what happened to Mary McGann, girl who wrote 1907 letter to Santa, nearly 17 years after finding it in his chimney - CBS News).]
On the night before Christmas back in 1907, a 10-year-old girl in a New York City apartment wrote a letter to Santa. Following an Irish tradition, she sent it up the chimney.
A man found that letter nearly 17 years ago when he was renovating his fireplace. Ever since, he’s been working to learn more about the little girl. His long journey came to a satisfying conclusion just last week, reports CBS News correspondent Dana Jacobson.
“As I’m bringing bricks out, I find this little blue envelope written to Santa Claus in Reindeer Land,” Peter Mattaliano recalled. “And I open it up. And here’s this letter from – from Mary.”
“And you say, ‘Mary,’ like you know her. But at the time . . .” Jacobson said.
“I know,” Mattaliano said. “It’s
funny.”
Mattaliano did not know anything about 10-year-old Mary McGann when he
discovered her partially charred letter in his fireplace. He was struck by the
last line of Mary’s note.
“My little brother would like a wagon that I know you cannot afford,” she wrote.
“She doesn’t ask for anything for
herself and then says, ‘Please, do not forget the poor.’ I mean, you know, the
spirit of Christmas, that generosity and maturity – she’s 10,” Mattaliano said.
So he set out to find Mary. The census records he dug up only told part of the
story. That’s when the New York Times got involved.
“They found where she was buried in
four days. Mary McGann married George McGahan, OK?” Mattaliano said, laughing.
“We get to the stone. And there it is, George McGahan. But Mary’s not on the
stone.”
There was a space, but no name. Mary, who never had children and worked as a
stenographer, died in 1979 at age 82.
“A little girl who had that kind of
emotional depth and generosity, has to be acknowledged,” Mattaliano said. “Even
if there’ll be nobody to go visit, she has to be acknowledged.”
Mattaliano couldn’t add Mary’s name because he is not related; but someone else
could.
“Last January, an article appeared in our local newspaper here in Ireland,” Brian Dempsey recalled.
Dempsey is a physics teacher who lives outside of Dublin. He recognized his mother’s maiden name and discovered he’s a distant cousin of Mary’s.
“It clicked,” Dempsey said “I know that. Amazing.”
As Mary’s relative, Brian passed the right to add her name to Mattaliano in the form of a notarized letter.
“I mean, look at it – it was obviously meant to be here,” Mattaliano said, standing beside her grave.
Thirty-seven years after her death, Mary McGann’s name was engraved on her tombstone.
“You got Mary’s name on that tombstone. What else has she given you?” Jacobson asked.
“Anytime things seem to be going south I still take a look at the letter. And I say, ‘All right. OK,’” Mattaliano said.
“It’s more than the Christmas spirit,” Jacobson said.
“It’s the Christmas spirit personified,” Mattaliano said.
* *
* *
“A
CHRISTMAS REQUEST,
ANSWERED A CENTURY LATER”
by Corey
Kilgannon
[This was Corey Kilgannon’s second report on Mary McGann’s letter to Santa. It appeared in Section A (the news section) of the New York Times on 21 December 2016.]
The stonecutter walked along Row F of a section of Mount St. Mary Cemetery in Flushing, Queens, and stopped at Grave 108, marked with a modest gray granite headstone.
He held a stencil bearing the words “Loving Wife Mary” and the years 1897 and 1979, which frame the life of Mary McGahan, loving wife of George McGahan.
The couple was childless, and according to cemetery records, both were buried here. But for whatever reason, Mary’s name was never added to the headstone under that of her husband when she died three years after him.
This bothered Peter Mattaliano, 67, an acting coach and screenwriter, who is not related to Ms. McGahan and never even knew her.
The connection came by quirk of a poignant letter to Santa he found in the fireplace of his Hell’s Kitchen apartment 17 years ago. It had been written by Mary nearly a century earlier, when she lived as a child in the same apartment, and became the impetus for an article in The New York Times a year ago [see below] about serendipity and Christmas.
Mr. Mattaliano visited the grave at that time and was upset to see the gravestone lacking her name. He murmured a graveside promise to Mary that he would be back to remedy this.
Last week, he was back, with the stonecutter, who laid the stencil across the headstone and used a sandblaster to carve her name into granite permanence, 37 years after her death.
When Mr. Mattaliano moved into the fourth-floor apartment at 447 West 50th Street in 1999, the fireplace had long been bricked shut. Renovating it, he found Mary’s letter, along with one from her little brother, Alfred.
Alfred had written to Santa asking for a drum and a hook-and-ladder fire truck. Mary’s was more touching, hinting at the family’s poverty and her selflessness even at age 10.
She wrote asking Santa for a wagon for her brother “which I know you cannot afford,” and for herself “something nice what you think best.” She signed off with the request: “P.S. Please do not forget the poor.”
Mr. Mattaliano was haunted by that reminder from a poor girl who requested a wagon for her brother first and nothing specific for herself.
“For somebody to show that kind of humanity at that early age,” he said. “I just could not stand to see her be forgotten.”
He would later learn from historical records that the siblings’ father had died abruptly and that they were being raised by their mother. She was a dressmaker who, records indicated, had given birth to three other children who did not survive infancy.
He found that Mary was born Mary McGann and wound up marrying the similarly named George McGahan, and that both of her parents wound up buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, in unmarked graves.
All of this hit home for Mr. Mattaliano, a bachelor with no children. He was 12 when his own father died. He and his three brothers saw some lean Christmases along with their mother in their Jersey City apartment.
He had the letters to Santa framed and began displaying them year-round above the fireplace. Every December, he honors Mary and Alfred by putting up Christmas decorations and laying out their presents: a fire truck for him and a doll for her.
“I’m sharing their space,” he said, of their continued presence in his apartment.
The story is well known among his friends, neighbors and even his acting students, who have included the likes of Jill Clayburgh and Javier Munoz, who now plays Alexander Hamilton [2016-18] in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.”
Over the years he wrote and polished a whimsical Christmas-themed movie script based on the letters. He has assembled a production team and is speaking to investors to finance the film, which he calls “Present From the Past.”
Visiting Ms. McGahan’s grave last December, Mr. Mattaliano planted a small tree near the grave and then patted the grave and promised that, “I’ll be back.”
Cemetery staff members told him that to add her name, he needed permission from the buyer of the plot (who is deceased) or a relative (he could find none).
Then he heard from a distant cousin of Mary’s, a man living in Ireland who read about Mr. Mattaliano’s story in an Irish newspaper article.
The cousin, Brian Dempsey, 56, a schoolteacher from County Kildare, agreed to send Mr. Mattaliano a notarized letter granting permission to add Ms. McGahan’s name. He also sent a bag of soil he scooped from a field near the small farm in Lullymore where Mary’s mother grew up before emigrating.
Even with the letter, Mr. Mattaliano still had problems getting the cemetery’s permission. For help, he contacted Michael Lewis, who owns an established monument company in Queens, but by early December, it still seemed that yet another Christmas would pass with Ms. McGahan’s going unacknowledged in her grave.
Then, a bit of holiday magic happened: the Metropolitan Cemetery Association held its annual holiday luncheon in a catering hall on Jericho Turnpike, a few miles from Ms. McGahan’s grave site.
A board member of the group, Jan Neuman, had enjoyed The Times story and had invited Mr. Mattaliano to the meeting to share the story with his members.
Mr. Mattaliano attended and, with the timing of a seasoned acting coach, told the story of the little girl’s big-hearted letter to Santa and where that girl wound up. Then he paused, and decided to plead his case in the room filled with cemetery officials.
A hand shot up. It belonged to Stephen Comando, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries, associated with the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Mount St. Mary Cemetery. The group was unaware of the difficulty, Mr. Comando said.
The necessary approvals were obtained and within two weeks, Mr. Mattaliano was smiling as the stonecutter finished engraving “Loving Wife Mary” into the granite.
Mr. Mattaliano knelt at the gravestone and sprinkled the small bag of Irish soil in front of it.
“Even if there’s no family to visit,” he said, “at least she’ll be acknowledged.”
*
* * *
“A CHIMNEY’S POIGNANT SURPRISE:
LETTERS
SANTA MISSED, LONG AGO”
by Corey Kilgannon
[Before Corey Kilgannon wrote the 2016 article for the New York Times, the reporter published this earlier story on 22 December 2015 in Section A (news).]
Last week, Peter Mattaliano, 66, an acting coach and screenwriter, put up Christmas decorations in his Hell’s Kitchen apartment and laid out presents for the children: Mary and Alfred.
These are not Mr. Mattaliano’s children, and they are no longer living. But a century ago they lived in what is now Mr. Mattaliano’s home.
He has honored Mary and Alfred every December for the past 15 years, ever since he learned of their existence when he renovated his fireplace. It had been sealed with brick for more than 60 years.
“My brother does construction, and I had him open up the fireplace,” he said. “We were joking that we might find Al Capone’s money. Then my brother yelled to me and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this.’”
In the rubble and dust, Mr. Mattaliano’s brother found a delicate piece of paper with faint children’s scrawl bearing a request to Santa from a century earlier.
“I want a drum and a hook and ladder,” read the letter, adding that the fire truck should be one with an “extentionisting” ladder. It was dated 1905 and signed “Alfred McGann,” who included the building’s address.
There was another item in the rubble: a small envelope addressed to Santa in “Raindeerland.” Inside was a second letter, this one dated 1907 and written by Alfred’s older sister, Mary, who had drawn a reindeer stamp as postage.
“The letters were written in this room, and for 100 years, they were just sitting there, waiting,” said Mr. Mattaliano.
He learned through online genealogical research that the siblings were the children of Patrick and Esther McGann, Irish immigrants who married in 1896. Mary was born in 1897 and Alfred in 1900.
The family lived at 447 West 50th Street, where Mr. Mattaliano now lives in a fourth-floor apartment filled with books on acting and mementos from his days as a fast-pitch knuckleballer.
Patrick McGann died in 1904, so by the time the children wrote the letters left in the chimney, they were being raised by Ms. McGann, a dressmaker.
Mary’s letter is as poignant as Alfred’s is endearing.
“Dear Santa Claus: I am very glad that you are coming around tonight,” it reads, the paper partly charred. “My little brother would like you to bring him a wagon which I know you cannot afford. I will ask you to bring him whatever you think best. Please bring me something nice what you think best.”
She signed it Mary McGann and added, “P.S. Please do not forget the poor.”
Mr. Mattaliano, who has read the letter countless times, still shakes his head at the implied poverty, the stoicism and the selflessness of the last line, all from a girl who requests a wagon for her brother first and nothing specific for herself.
“This is a family that couldn’t afford a wagon, and she’s writing, ‘Don’t forget the poor,’ ” he said. “That just shot an arrow through me. What did she think poor was?”
Then there was the fact that the letters had survived at all, perhaps avoiding incineration by being tucked on a ledge or in a crevice in the chimney.
The letters have become “my most treasured possessions,” said Mr. Mattaliano, who had them framed and displays them year-round above the mantel of the fireplace where they had been discovered. On Friday, they were joined by ornaments and mementos, along with a dump truck, a miniature wagon and a doll. “I wanted them to have a Christmas present, even if it was 100 years too late,” he said.
The story is well known among his friends, neighbors, acting students and the regulars at a longstanding Friday night poker game.
“I’m the new guy in the group, and I’ve been there since the late ’80s,” said Mr. Mattaliano, whose roster of actors he has coached includes Jill Clayburgh and Matthew Morrison.
For Mr. Mattaliano, the letters summoned a link to his years growing up in an apartment in Jersey City. He would leave letters to Santa under the tree on Christmas Eve.
When Mr. Mattaliano was 12, his father, who was 47, died of cancer just before Christmas, leaving his mother, Margaret Costello, to raise him and his three younger brothers on her own.
“So we had a few rough years,” he said. “For the next couple years, our Christmases were a little lean.”
Mr. Mattaliano, who has lived in Hell’s Kitchen for 36 years, saw the children’s letters as a testament to the immigrant struggle in New York.
“I’m sharing their space,” he said. Their spirits remain in the apartment, he believes, forever young, in something of a Hell’s Kitchen snow globe.
He has written a movie script based on the letters, titled “Present From the Past.” It is fictionalized, but includes the letters quoted word for word and the children depicted as spirits in the apartment.
Mr. Mattaliano said he had attracted the interest of investors and hoped to start working on the film by the spring, using Broadway actors and shooting in Hell’s Kitchen and indoors on a set that replicates his apartment.
But even after he had written the script, he knew almost nothing about Alfred or Mary. He wanted to know more, and he wanted to give the letters to their family.
He began looking on genealogy websites and found census data that had basic information about the family. With the help of a reporter and a researcher from The New York Times, he found out more, including the father’s death.
By 1920, Mary, Alfred and their mother had moved up to West 76th Street. As young adults, Mary worked as a stenographer and Alfred as a printer. By 1930, Mary had married the similarly named George McGahan and moved to the Bronx, and later to Queens. Her brother also married.
But, so far, Mr. Mattaliano has not found any living blood relative. Neither sibling appeared to have children and both apparently died in Queens; Mary in 1979, at 82, three years after her husband. She is buried in Flushing. Alfred’s burial location is unclear, perhaps because his birth name was John Alfonse McGann. He seems to have died childless in 1965 in Queens. His wife, Mae, died in 1991.
Mr. Mattaliano met with Bruce Abrams, a volunteer at the Division of Old Records in the Surrogate’s Court in Lower Manhattan, and saw proof of the 1904 death of the children’s father.
“So their mother became the breadwinner — that’s why they couldn’t afford a wagon,” he said. “She was a widow at 35 with two kids.”
On a recent weekday, Mr. Mattaliano took the No. 7 train to Flushing, carrying a small, potted tree for Ms. McGahan’s grave site. He walked into the office at Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery and was told her grave location: Division 11, Row F, Grave 108.
The modest headstone bore the name McGahan, but only her husband’s name, George, not Mary’s.
Mr. Mattaliano said he would look into having Ms. McGahan’s name added to the gravestone. He put his hand on the grave and murmured little Mary’s Christmas reminder to Santa: “Please do not forget the poor.”
“You know, I might have to come out here every Christmas,” he said as he turned to leave, and then added over his shoulder, “I’ll be back.”
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