Post by Matilda on Mar 6, 2021 1:22:09 GMT
OK, this thread is partly for Scrooge MacDuck, since the Wikia acknowledges the existence of HDL's Aunt Gerta and Uncle Sven, from Lapland Friends: An Adventure in Sweden, vol 14 of the Disney Small World Library series. These are easy-reading children's books, not comic books, so normally I wouldn't pay any attention to characters they introduce. However, it occurred to me that it would be possible to connect Gerta and Greta Goose from Don Christensen's Grandma Duck story in WDC 141. Which is a comic book story, and one I personally happen to like!
In Christensen's story, Grandma Duck has traveled to "the North Woods" to visit Greta Goose. Greta is young--she is a super-strong lumberjack who is looking for a boyfriend, and Elvira determines to help her out. BTW, Christensen was from Minnesota, so I've decided that's where this is set. The North Woods could refer to Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin or possibly Ontario. Greta calls Elvira "Grandma," which of course doesn't mean much, because everyone did in older comics. But she also refers to "Cousin Gus," which makes you wonder whether she really is a relative. Grandma Duck explains her coming by saying "What are friends for?" but that is something that a relative might also say. But for purposes of discussion, let's posit that she is a relative. She speaks with a possibly Swedish accent--not uncommonly found in Minnesota, where many Scandinavians landed. So, could she be connected to Gerta and Sven? Could that couple explain why Elvira might have a Swedish-accented young relative?
In Lapland Friends, Gerta and Sven are presented as HDL's aunt and uncle who live in Sweden. Grandma Duck has told the boys what to expect (lots of fun in the snow), so she's the one who has told HDL about these relatives, which may indicate they're related to the boys on Elvira's branch of the family tree. Gerta indeed is an Elvira lookalike, with the same hairstyle. Gerta and Sven both have gray hair and are said to be "elderly." They are active, though, and they are the bakers who supply all the bread for the village, though Sven is getting too old to pull the sled with all the bread into town by himself. So, oldish, but maybe not elderly, depending on one's definition. I raise the question of age in order to decide on where they might fit in the family tree generation-wise. Elvira's generation, or the next? I'll suggest both possibilities.
(1) Gerta is Elvira's sister. Note that her name is similar to their mother's, Gertrude! She could have been named Gertrude and started going by Gerta on moving to Sweden, or could have been named Gerta to give her a slightly different name from her mother. It was more common in the early 1900's and before in the USA for a girl to be named after her mother than it has been in recent decades. Gerta is HDL's great-great-aunt. Gerta somehow met and fell in love with Sven from Sweden and went to live with him there. They had one daughter, we'll call her Clara, who wanted to visit America to see her mother's homeland, and while there met and fell in love with a Swedish-American guy, Mr. Goose (possibly Anglicized from "Gås"?). They lived in Minnesota where they raised their daughter Greta, who took after Daddy Goose in appearance. Greta was named in honor of her grandmother Gerta, but with a more English-friendly arrangement of letters. Gus is her second cousin. Elvira is her great-aunt.
(2) Gerta is Elvira's daughter. The people who wrote the book were probably unaware that Elvira is HDL's great-grandmother, and quite an elderly lady. Her daughter could easily be in her 60's and gray-haired. Especially since respectable women did *not* dye their hair in the 1950's, when I maintain this all happened! Elvira named Gerta in honor of her own mother Gertrude. Story proceeds as outlined above. In this case, Clara is literally Elvira's granddaughter and Greta is her great-granddaughter, so she has as much right to call Elvira "Grandma" as HDL do. The honorific naming here pleasingly follows an every-other-generation pattern: Gerta named after grandma Gertrude; Greta named after grandma Gerta. Gus is Greta's mother Clara's second cousin (same relationship HDL have with Gus; he's their mother's second cousin). Gerta is HDL's great-aunt.
Even if Gerta is Elvira's daughter rather than her sister, I'd still want an intervening generation between her and Greta, both because Greta seems too young to have parents in their 60's and because we need to introduce the "Goose" into the picture.
(3) If one doesn't want to mess with the Coot family tree, one could make Gerta and Sven relatives of HDL on their father's side...maybe he had Swedish roots! And you could make them the grandparents of Greta Goose. Then you wouldn't even have to figure out a way for a non-rich American girl of that era to meet a Swedish man. But that solution ignores Gerta's strong resemblance to Elvira and the fun coincidence of the similarity of the names Gerta and Greta with Gertrude. It also keeps Greta from being any sort of blood relative of Elvira or Gus.
(4) Another non-Coot possibility builds on the fact that Greta and Gus have the same last name. Perhaps Luke Goose has a brother who married a Swedish or Swedish-American girl (maybe Clara, Sven & Gerta's daughter), and they are the parents of Greta. That would indeed make Greta and Gus first cousins....but again, doesn't explain Gerta's physical similarity to Elvira, doesn't exploit the "Gertrude" connection *and* means that Gerta and Sven would be, say, HDL's grandfather's cousin's parents-in-law, which is a bit of stretch for the title of "aunt and uncle." I acknowledge, though, that Don Christensen, who gave Greta the last name "Goose" and had her refer to "Cousin Gus," may indeed have been thinking that Greta was a paternal cousin of Gus. And Christensen wasn't working with the family tree I'm working with, so he might have assumed that a paternal cousin of Gus could also be some sort of blood relative of Elvira. In view of the Rosa family tree, however, it's hard for me to figure out how to square this placement with Greta calling Elvira "Grandma" (Elvira would be the aunt of her father's sister-in-law--yes, yes, I know, "everyone calls me Grandma!"), or indeed with Elvira feeling close enough to her to travel to the North Woods to visit her.
Again, I myself wouldn't grant reality to a couple of relatives from an easy-reader, if I didn't like the Christensen story with Greta Goose. It's easier for me to imagine Elvira traveling a long way to visit a relative than it is for me to imagine how she would have become such close friends with a young, Swedish-accented person living far away. If Greta is a relative, then you need to explain her Swedishness. Gerta and Sven provide a possible way to do that, and the similarity between the names Greta, Gerta and Gertrude was a happy bonus!
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