Did President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan quietly drive themselves to a Virginia nursing home to serve breakfast to elderly residents on Christmas Day 1983? No, that's not true: This is a completely made-up story that is contradicted by historical records, including President Reagan's personal diary entry for that date. It was published by a Pakistani-based spam factory that has been called out in previous investigations for using fake historical posts to earn money from Facebook.
The claim originated in a post (archived here) published by the "Old Days" Facebook account on January 15, 2026. The story opened:
On December 25, 1983, Ronald and Nancy Reagan quietly broke presidential protocol in the most beautiful way imaginable. Before dawn, at 6 a.m., they slipped out of the White House without fanfare, drove themselves to a small suburban Virginia nursing home, and spent the morning serving breakfast to elderly residents who had no family to visit them on Christmas Day. Nancy stood at the griddle flipping pancakes, while Ronnie sat beside a 90-year-old woman with dementia who kept calling him "son." He never corrected her. He simply held her hand and whispered, "I'm here, Mama. I'm here."
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Jan 19 17:37:02 2026 UTC)
This is the image used to illustrate the story:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
The story continued:
The Secret Service was frantic--there was no full security detail, no advance planning, no press. This wasn't a staged moment or a political gesture. It began because Nancy had read a letter from a nursing home administrator describing the crushing loneliness many residents felt during the holidays. She turned to Ronnie and said, "We have to do something. These could be our parents."
What few people knew at the time was that this wasn't a one-day act of kindness. It became a private tradition the Reagans repeated every Christmas throughout all eight years of the presidency. Always in secret. Always without cameras. Nancy baked cookies herself the night before. Ronnie brought letters from soldiers overseas and read them aloud to veterans whose eyes could no longer manage the words.
One Christmas, Reagan spent forty-five minutes sitting beside a dying Korean War veteran, holding his hand and praying quietly so he wouldn't have to leave this world alone. When Nancy found them, Ronnie was crying. "No hero," he told her, "should die without someone telling them thank you."
These stories only surfaced years later, shared by nursing home staff after Reagan's death. They endure because they reveal something rare and enduring--that the most meaningful acts of love and service are often the ones no one sees, done not for recognition or applause, but simply because the heart knows it must show up.
Knowing President Reagan's daily activities is simple. His diary is available online courtesy of the The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, which is connected to his presidential library.
Reagan's diary entry (archived here) for December 25, 1983 tells a different story. There is nothing about slipping out of the White House and driving himself, with a small Secret Service team, to a nursing home in Virginia, where he and the first lady purportedly spent all day cooking and visiting with residents. Instead, the president spent time in the "situation room" being brief on serious international issues, giving interviews to four wire services, and finally getting a hair cut.
A really easy day. N.S.C.--Cap getting ready to release study by commission investigating Beirut massacre of our Marines (241). They are going to charge there was negligance on part of officers regarding safety precautions. I'm worried about the effect of this on families that lost loved ones. Another briefing in situation room on Soviet nuclear arms & the almost impossibility of verifying whether they are cheating or not. Did year end interview with 4 wire services. Had a haircut & upstairs.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of reaganfoundation.org)
A little digging revealed that the "Old Days" Facebook page is part of a network administered from Pakistan that produces and promotes fake historical stories targeted at an American audience. The Meta transparency data (archived here) showed it is managed from Pakistan and has changed its name three times since it was created as "Just Smile" in November 2022.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
An identical post (archived here) was also shared by the "Historical Fragments" account on Facebook on January 15, 2026. The Facebook transparency data (archived here) also showed Pakistani management.
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of Facebook)
The first result in a Google search (archived here) for "Being Master LLC, Sheridan WY, 82801 USA" was a Reddit thread (archived here) titled "How cybercriminals are using Wyoming shell companies for global hacks." That thread focused on questionable LLCs using the same address.
The search also found a series of investigative reports about Being Master LLC, including an article (archived here) Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project titled "Provereno: How Facebook Scammers Cash In On Fake AI-Generated Holocaust Victims." It reported on an investigation by an Israeli news organization that identified Facebook pages managed by Being Masters LLC were publishing fake images of supposed Holocaust victims, along with false stories:
The site found that many images were generated using artificial intelligence, and that the accompanying text was largely fabricated. In some cases, real photographs of Holocaust victims--previously published by the Auschwitz Museum--were altered with AI... The fact-checkers found that these pages published between 10 and 50 posts per day--a volume suggesting automation for both the creation and scheduling of content.
You can read the original investigation report here (archived here.) Although the article is in Russian, there is a button to translate it into English.
