Matilda McDuck

Matilda McDuck is Scrooge McDuck's younger sister and Donald Duck's aunt.

Matilda was created by Carl Barks and first mentioned in the Duck family tree Barks wrote for personal use in the 1950s. Here, Matilda is shown to be Gladstone Gander's adoptive mother. On Mark Worden's illustrated version of Barks' tree (1981), Matilda made her first physical appearance, bearing a striking resemblance to Gina Luluduckita from The Midas Touch (1961). When Barks re-created the tree from memory in the 1990s, Matilda was left out of the picture.

Don Rosa gave her a prominent rol in the Eiser Award-winning series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. In the first part of the twelve-part saga, Matilda is still a child when her older brother Scrooge leaves Scotland for America. In The Invader of Fort Duckburg, Matilda herself leaves Scotland, together with her sister Hortense and brother Scrooge. Arriving in Duckburg, she, Hortense and her brother-in-law Quackmore Duck work for Scrooge in his massive Money Bin. According to the saga's eleventh chapter, while Scrooge is on a trip abroad, Matilda and her sister were the ones who hired Miss Quackfaster as Scrooges new secretary.When Scrooge finally returns to Duckburg near the end of the story, Matilda and the rest of the family prepare for a nice reunion, but because of Scrooges unpleasant behavior the family leaves him.

Matilda reappeared in A Letter from Home or The Old Castles's Other Secret. Here, we learn that Matilda took the job as caretaker of the McDuck-estate in Scotland without letting her brother Scrooge know about it. After a grand adventure, the two siblings are finally reunited.

Matilda also appeared alongside her family in a flashback in Donald's Homemade Christmas (2012).

Trivia

 * Don Rosa originally wanted to use Hortense in A Letter from Home, but Disney didn't want Donald's mother to be used in a present-day story, so Rosa used Matilda instead. That's why Matilda in such story tends to have some temper more similar to her sister's one..
 * Matilda tends to have a flower either on her hair or on a hat. These flowers are constantly losing petals. While Matilda doesn't have any flower on her hair in A Letter from Home, she is briefly seen cultivating similar flowers.
 * Depending of the colorist, Matilda can have brown or blonde hair. The editions where she has brown hair also have her getting it grey earlier.
 * As a tribute to Rosa, Marco Gervasio, creator of a series of Duck comics featuring the gentleman-burglar Fantomius, taking place in Duckburg, 1920s, gave Matilda a cameo appearance in one of his stories. She could be seen sitting in the audience of the D.U.C.K. theatre (yet another reference to Rosa), together with her sister Hortense and her brother-in-law Quackmore.
 * According to Rosa, Ludwig Von Drake could be Matilda's husband.