Grandma Duck

Elvira "Grandma Duck" Coot is the grandmother of Donald Duck and Gladstone Gander, as well as the Duck family matriarch. In most stories, she is simply referred to as Grandma Duck. Grandma Duck was introduced to the Disney comic universe by Al Taliaferro in the newspaper comic strips - as a picture in 1940, in person in 1943. Taliaferro found inspiration for her in his own mother-in-law, Donnie M. Wheaton. According to Keno Don Rosa, Grandma was born around 1855. Later, she married Humperdink Duck, and they had three children named Quackmore Duck (Donald Duck's father), Daphne Duck (Gladstone Gander's mother) and Eider Duck. So fond were Elvira and Humperdink of their children that they called themselves "Ma and Pa Duck" (again, according to Don Rosa). Quackmore married Hortense McDuck, and they were the parents of Della Duck and Donald Duck. When Della gave up on her difficult children, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Grandma helped Donald to raise them. She shares the credit with the Junior Woodchucks for the trio evolving from little hellions to model children.

Grandma's great-nephew Gus Goose is her farmhand and lives on the farm. However, he is very lazy and does not work much. In some stories, especially older ones, Grandma Duck also gets help from Gus and Jaq, the two mice from Cinderella.

Grandma's farm is the center of the Duck family's annual holiday gatherings, with said gatherings usually arranged by her. These are always merry and warm and interesting occasions. Grandma Elvira is a great cook, and once won a medal for her cherry pie.

She is depicted as driving a Detroit Electric automobile. She refuses to acquire any modern gadgetry, and only watches weather programs on the TV.

In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa, it is shown that her father is Clinton Coot, her mother is Gertrude Gadwall, her grandfather is Cornelius Coot, and her brother is Casey Coot. (Her real name being "Elvira Coot" was also Rosa's addition.) In older Italian stories (including Marco Rota's From Egg to Duck), she is sometimes shown as Scrooge McDuck's sister, but this tradition is no longer alive. Occasionally they have also been portrayed as being cousins, another now rarely enforced tradition. The "truth" is that Scrooge is the brother of Elvira's daughter-in-law. For this relationship there is no word in the English language.

Grandma made her animated debut in the 1960 Wonderful World of Color episode "This is Your Life, Donald Duck", where she was voiced by June Foray. The episode depicted her great difficulty in raising Donald, a strong-willed and ill-tempered duckling from the moment he was hatched. She also made a non-speaking cameo in Mickey's Christmas Carol.