Grandma Duck

Donald's grandmother.

Origin

She was created by Al Taliaferro, with his mother-in-law, Donnie M. Wheaton, as the inspiration. (Mrs. Wheaton lived on a farm and had the same hair-do as Grandma, among other things. She stayed with the Taliaferros during the birth of their first child, and at that time Grandma first appeared in the strip!)

She was first seen in a portrait on Donald's wall in the Donald Duck strip on August 11, 1940, but she didn't appear in person until 1943. Usually she is just called Grandma, but in the Grandma story in WDC 121, page 7, panel 2, her first name is given as Elviry. (It's of course a nickname for Elvira.)

Relations

In Carl Barks's Duck Family Tree she is the mother of Quackmore and Daphne Duck.

In Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree she is also the mother of Eider Duck who married Lulubelle Loon and had the children Fethry and Abner Whitewater Duck.

In the same tree Rosa first intended her deceased husband to be named Dabney, but instead it became Humperdink as Grandma fondly remembers an old sweetheart Humperdink in a story in Vacation Parade #2. It's not said explicitly in that story that that Humperdink then became her husband [at least not in the Swedish translation -- can anyone confirm this in the original], but that seems probable. He is seen in one panel of that story.

For many years, Disney comics in several European countries depicted Grandma as Scrooge's sister. In the Italian story From Egg to Duck (1984) Scrooge and Grandma found Donald by the side of the road where he had been abandoned by his real parents, and Grandma subsequently adopted him. In the stories of the Dutch Donald Duck Weekly for many years, Grandma was shown as being Scrooge's sister and Donald's mother, and this was often shown in family trees and photo albums on the back cover of the magazine. It has only been since Rosa's Duck Family Tree was printed that they have realized that Barks (and probably other American authors) meant it differently.

Other sources

Rich Bellacera's HooZoo page.

Find the names in other languages for: Grandma Duck

Last updated August 19, 1997.

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