{"id":105634,"date":"2025-12-09T06:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/?p=105634"},"modified":"2025-12-09T06:28:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T11:28:22","slug":"yes-virginia-there-was-a-santa-claus-believe-it-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/yes-virginia-there-was-a-santa-claus-believe-it-or-not.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes, Virginia, There Was a Santa Claus \u2013 Believe It or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, James Pylant digs through old newspapers to find accounts of a real Santa Claus \u2013 and more than one! James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPlease tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?\u201d eight-year-old Virginia O\u2019Hanlon famously asked in a letter to the editor of the New York newspaper Sun<\/em><\/a> in 1897. \u201cYes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,\u201d came the reply in an editorial that became a catchphrase after being widely reprinted in newspapers.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration:
Illustration: colorized \u201cMerry Old Santa Claus\u201d by Thomas Nast, 1863. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Believe it or not, in a red-and-white house in North Pole, New York, lived a man named Santa C. Claus. He worked at a theme park called Santa\u2019s Workshop from 1970 to 1979 and spent much of his time traveling and making appearances as St. Nick. Born LeRoy Scholtz, he legally changed his name to Santa C. Claus in New Jersey in 1980. He died five years later at age 58, just two days before Christmas.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana), 24 December 1985, page 35<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew him for seven years,\u201d said [Dick] Kutok, who hired Claus for a series of promotions and advertising spots. \u201cHe was probably the most giving person you ever met in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026\u201cHe believed that the greatest gift of all was love,\u201d said Kutok. \u201cHe had made appearances all over the country and was known all over the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LeRoy Scholtz wasn\u2019t the only official Santa Claus. A few days after Christmas 1927 \u2013 the year Scholtz was born \u2013 the Associated Press reported \u201cThere is a Santa Claus,\u201d echoing the famous editorial.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 30 December 1927, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

There is a Santa Claus.<\/p>\n

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Connors, registered his name at the city clerk\u2019s office today.<\/p>\n

Santa Claus Connors was born on Christmas day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, other newspapers declared \u201cThere\u2019s no Santa Claus\u201d \u2013 at least not in the Connors family of Fall River. The birth certificate filed by the attending physician was a joke.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Evening Bulletin (Providence, Rhode Island), 29 December 1927, page 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

The newest addition to the Connors family is Joseph, says the father, and Joseph, not Santa Claus, he will be christened Sunday next.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jeremiah F. Lowney, who attended mother and child, made out the birth certificate in City Hall for Santa Claus Connors, but he was just joking, said Mr. Connors. He continued that the doctor exclaimed, \u201cHere is Santa Claus Connors,\u201d as the baby was born shortly after midnight Christmas eve.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet a decade earlier, in 1917, a birth was reported in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, for a baby boy bearing St. Nick\u2019s name, and it was no joke.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Knickerbocker News (Albany, New York), 12 December 1938, page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Initially, his birth was registered under a different name, and the official record was \u201ccorrected\u201d in 1938, changing it from Paul Rhine Klaus to Santa Paul Klaus.* Paul is how he appeared in the 1930 federal census<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Far from white-haired and portly, this Keystone State Kris Kringle had brown hair, green eyes and grew to six feet, weighing 170 pounds, according to his 1940 draft registration<\/a>. The federal census<\/a> that year listed 22-year-old Santa Klaus living with his parents in Pottstown.<\/p>\n

The borough\u2019s celebrated resident was pictured in the local newspaper on Christmas Eve 1938.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Pottstown Mercury (Pottstown, Pennsylvania), 24 December 1938, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The newspaper couldn\u2019t resist noting that Pottstown lies a short distance from the borough of Nazareth, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

That week, Klaus made two radio broadcasts in Philadelphia<\/a> during the Christmas holiday, describing how \u201cit feels to be Santa Klaus 365 days of the year.\u201d He even played Santa at Macy\u2019s in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

In November 1940, Santa P. Klaus began construction of a restaurant<\/a> in Pottstown, later known as the Santa Klaus Luncheonette.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Pottstown Mercury (Pottstown, Pennsylvania), 25 December 1941, page 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Christmas Day 1941, the Pottstown Santa received mention in the syndicated \u201cRipley\u2019s Believe It or Not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Erie Daily Times (Erie, Pennsylvania), 25 December 1941, page 17<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, a pretender to the name lived in Tennessee \u2013 one S. Klaus<\/a>, a Chattanooga realtor, received Christmas-time telephone calls from children at his office. He was also featured in \u201cRipley\u2019s Believe It or Not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRipley\u2019s sketch of the face of the Chattanoogan was a good enough likeness for friends of Sol C. Klaus, real estate man, to report that it was Klaus who was referred to by Ripley\u2019s,\u201d reported the Chattanooga Daily Times<\/em><\/a> in December 1944. Two years later, another Chattanooga newspaper ran a story about the realtor.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Chattanooga News-Free Press (Chattanooga, Tennessee), 20 December 1946, page 13<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sadly, Santa Paul Klaus died at age 30 in 1948. According to a FamilySearch<\/a> family tree, he was a husband and father. He was buried in Highland Memorial Park<\/a> in Pottstown.<\/p>\n

His great-nephew, actor Kyle Klaus<\/a>, has appeared in several movies and television shows.<\/p>\n

* Santa Paul Klaus (1938), \u201cPennsylvania, U.S., Birth Certificates, 1906-1917,\u201d online database with images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com<\/a>: accessed 20 November 2025).<\/p>\n

Create a free account<\/a> at GenealogyBank for 7 days to start your journey and discover the stories your ancestors left behind.<\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> Santa Claus. Credit: https:\/\/depositphotos.com\/home.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, James Pylant digs through old newspapers to find accounts of a real Santa Claus \u2013 and more than one!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":105664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12703],"tags":[45,3742,59208],"class_list":["post-105634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","tag-christmas","tag-santa-claus","tag-santa-klaus"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/illustration-1209-2013-featured-graphic-santa-claus.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105634"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105668,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105634\/revisions\/105668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}