☞ Public‐domain character. First appearance: 1260?
JOHANE. A wealthy woman of Asia Minor who is the mother of Saint Nicholas (Golden Legend, 1260: “Here Beginneth the Life of S. Nicholas the Bishop”).
PATHEMA. The mother of Saint Nicholas according to an 1899 text, The Mother of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus).
THE MOTHER OF SANTA CLAUS. The mother of Santa Claus in the 1908 play The Mother of Santa Claus, which provides no name for her but describes her as “a chubby little old lady with white hair and red cheeks” who “wears a white waist, dark, short skirt, red shoes and stockings, and is enveloped in a great red cape with a hood.” Concerned about how physically taxing her son’s annual trip has become, she attempts to lighten his burden by finding selfless children to assist him by forgoing their gifts in order to instead provide gifts for others. “I’m going all up and down the earth,” she tells a group of children she has been observing, “hunting for generous little children who will forget what they hope to get themselves, and try to help Santa Claus a little by giving something to somebody else.” She then takes those very children on a “long, cold ride” to the house she shares with her son and where his workshop is located.
NELLIE CLAUS. A resident of Cole’s kingdom who is the mother of Santa Claus, the daughter of Mother Goose, and the wife of the Baker and the Pieman (considered to be the same character named Mr. Claus), according to a December 1921 story in The Ladies’ Home Journal. The story, however, presents a radical revision to the Santa Claus mythos and is marred by numerous assertions that contradict his long‐established and well‐known origin story, not the least of which being that Mother Goose is his maternal grandmother (LHJ 38, no. 12: “There Was a Boy Who Lived on Pudding Lane”).
Public‐domain bibliography
The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, by Jacobus da Varagine, 1260, vol. 2, trans. William Caxton, 1483. (HathiTrust) (HathiTrust)
The Mother of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus): A Story of Duty and Peril, by Grant Balfour (pseudonym of James Miller Grant), 1899. (HathiTrust) (Internet Archive)
The Mother of Santa Claus: A Christmas Entertainment for Children in Two Acts, by Bertha Currier Porter, 1908. (HathiTrust)
“There Was a Boy Who Lived on Pudding Lane: A True Account, If Only You Believe It, of the Life and Ways of Santa, Eldest Son of Mr. and Mrs. Claus,” by Sarah Addington, The Ladies’ Home Journal, vol. 38, no. 12, Dec. 1921. (HathiTrust)
Reprinted as The Boy Who Lived in Pudding Lane: Being a True Account, If Only You Believe It, of the Life and Ways of Santa, Oldest Son of Mr. and Mrs. Claus, 1922. (Internet Archive) (U. Florida)