1911 Letter to Santa Found in Chimney

Did you write Dear Santa letters as a child? Did your children? Mine did. I still have one that my oldest son wrote when he was five years old.

But recently a letter to Santa written 100 years ago, on Christmas Eve 1911, was found stuffed in a chimney in a house in Ireland.
A brother and sister - Hannah 10 and Fred 7, wrote the letter and stuffed it in the chimney for Santa to find on his way down on Christmas Eve. It lay undisturbed except for a bit of scorching from fires lit in the fireplace, until 1992.  

Written on Christmas Eve in 1911 in Dublin, the letter is signed by “A or H Howard.” Along with their Christmas wishes, the children  included illustrations and a wish of good luck. The children hoped for “a baby doll and a pair of gloves ... apple... a gold penny.... and a long toffee” 

1911 Census Dublin Ireland

According to the 1911 census for Oakland Terrace, Dublin Ireland there were three children living at the address in the year in which the letter was written. The youngest of them, Hannah, who was 10 at the time, and Fred (presumably short for Alfred) who was seven, fit in with the initials on the letter. A third child, a 13-year-old called Lily, is also listed in the census. Their parents were listed as Fred Hamer Howard and Mary Elizabeth Howard, both age 41. Everyone in the family were born in England.

A search of Ancestry.com shows that the father Fred died in the first quarter of 1920 in Dublin. Fred and Mary were married 18 Aug 1894 in Albert Memorial Church in Collyhurst, Manchester England. Fred's father was Moses Howard and Mary's father was William Dean.