 The column was named "Dear Beatrice Fairfax" at her suggestion, after Dante's Beatrice and her own family's country home in Fairfax County, Virginia.The column began on July 20, 1898 as the first advice column in the United States.Her advice was an immediate success, and the column received so many letters that the United States Post Office soon refused to deliver them and the "Journal" had to retrieve the letters itself.