Family relations in Taliaferro stories?

Stefan Persson spe at inducks.org
Thu Dec 25 19:23:17 CET 2008


I was wondering: what family relations are mentioned in Taliaferro's Donald Duck 
stories? I can think of two:

- In the Silly Symphones Sunday strip from 1937-10-17, Donald receives a message 
from his cousin Della, telling that his nephews Louie, Huey and Dewey will have 
to stay at Donald's place while the nephews' father is in hospital.

- In the Donald Duck Sunday strip from 1960-05-08, Scrooge finds a treasure 
chest buried in the garden to his mansion, and the chest was buried by Scrooge's 
father.

Both of these strips contradict with Don Rosa:
- According to Don Rosa, Della is Donald's sister (and not his cousin). 
Additionally, Don Rosa thinks that HDL are Della's sons, but usually your 
cousin's sons wouldn't at the same time be your nephews. The Taliaferro strip 
tells us that HDL are Della's sons if, and only if, she has married her own 
cousin (and that cousin would then also be Donald's brother).

- According to Don Rosa, Scrooge's father lived in Scotland until his death, but 
the mansion in the Taliaferro strip doesn't look like Scrooge's father's home in 
any of the Rosa stories, and doesn't seem to be located in Scotland either. 
Additionally, Taliaferro tells us that Scrooge's father had a lot of money 
(enough to fill up a treasure chest that he could bury), whereas Rosa tells us 
that he was constantly broke.

But do the Taliaferro strips contradict with any stories made by anyone else, 
apart from Don Rosa?

- In the movie "Donald's Nephews", Donald receives a letter from his sister 
Dumbella. Dumbella doesn't have to be the same person as Della, so there is no 
contradiction as far as I can see. They *could* be the same person, but that 
would require another unusual family relation, with Della's father being the 
brother of Della's sister.

- In the story "The Old Castle's Secret" we learn that the McDuck family used to 
live in a castle in Scotland. But it doesn't tell when they moved away from the 
castle -- they might have moved from that castle several centuries ago. So 
there's no contradiction with that story. Is there any other Barks story 
mentioning Scotland? Note that even if it says that Scrooge's father was living 
in Scotland at some point, it doesn't automatically mean that he was living 
there *for his whole life* -- he might have moved at a later point. Is there any 
non-Rosa story (apart from the Taliaferro strip) telling whether he was rich or 
poor?

Stefan


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