This character, Huey Dewey and Louie's mother, is very mysterious, not only because her name is inconsistant, but also because we haven't seen her in public life since 1930 (Lo$), when she was just a child, and what happened to her is still a mystery...
I tried to make a list of all her appearances (in person or by name) to know her better...
 

First, in an October 17th, 1937 strip by Al Taliaferro, Huey, Dewey and Louie, three brand new characters come to visit Donald Duck, whom they call "Uncle", just after he receives a letter explaining the situation. The letter tells :   "Dear Donald,      I am sending your angel nephews Louie, Huey and Dewey, to stay with you while their father is in the hospital. A giant firecracker exploded under his chair. The little darlings are so playful. I hope you enjoy them. Your cousin,     Della." After a series of 6 strips in which Huey, Dewey and Louie are unbearable and cause a lot of troubles to their Unca'Donald, Donald receives a telegram from the boys' mother again, and they are sent back to their mother's. In a February 25, 1940 Taliaferro strip, the nephews settled down to Donald's house, which they will never leave anymore, and no explanations are given to this mystery. Donald will then raise his nephews alone... *(note that the scan is from a French version recently published, so, to fit in with the actual Disney universe, Della has been replaced by Dumbella, and cousin by "soeur"=sister...)

    Then, the first strip is adapted for cinema, and the mystery is growing...
 

In the Disney cartoon "Donald's Nephews", from 1938, it's not a letter anymore that appears but a postcard instead, which says : "Dear Brother-      I am sending your angel nephews to stay with you- Sister Dumbella" So the name Della changed into Dumbella instead, which became her official name, but her relation with Donald changed too : she's not his cousin anymore but his sister. Some people explained the differences between the names by the fact that Della is a shortened version of Dumbella (this was at least the French "Picsou Magazine"'s explanation), or that "Dumbella" is a "nickname" Donald used to annoy Della when they were children (this was Don Rosa's possible explanation, even though he doesn't consider the non-Barks works, and even less the cartoons as factual). But people had more difficulties to explain the changing of family relationship between Donald and Della/Dumbella, some chose to ignore this detail, which was the case of the guy who translated the panel above for instance, and another theory tells that Dumbella is the mother of Huey, Dewey and Louie and Donald's sister, and Della is a totally different character who is Donald's cousin who sent Huey, Dewey and Louie to his house. The second theory is interresting but hard to believe, even if it's not actually told in the strips that she is HDL's mother, and anyway, we'll see that it's later been disqualified by Don Rosa. So the best way would be to ignore the word "cousin" in the first letter and replace it by "sister"...

The time passed, but Huey, Dewey and Louie were still at Donald's home, and theories about thir parents were growing... Are they dead? Did Della commit suicide after her husband died at the hospital because of the firecracker (well, a firecracker is not much dangerous, but this one was a giant one, and moreover, the father could have heart problems)? Are they just good-for-nothing people who left their children because they were fed up with raising them and moved to live far from town?...
 

Then, in the early '50s, Carl Barks drew a sketch of the Duck family tree for his personnal use, in which he made her be Donald's sister and HDL's mother, but renamed her "Thelma". In 1981, Mark Worden drew a black and white adaptation of this tree, and created a portrait for Thelma (this is the way he called her too). So, this tree was her first appearance in person. This is also the first time we can see her husband (unnamed, though). In his other version of the sketches of his Duck family tree, Barks didn't use a name for Donald's sister. We can imagine that Thelma could be her middle name...

 
 

In 1941, a book entitled "The Life of Donald Duck" comes out and tells a more or less fictive biography of Donald Duck, and in it we're told how, after becoming a movie star, Donald receives a postcard from his unnamed sister (he didn't even know he had a family!). The postcard is an exact retranscription of the one in the cartoon, except that the name Dumbella has been dropped. In 1966, a kind of remake of thisbook, but in pocket format, probably of Italian origin, came out by the French title of "Donald cherche fortune" (French free translation by C. Ciccione). we also find a postcard, but the text changed a bit :  " Dear Brother, You'll soon be visited by your beloved nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie. Your sister". *note that in the French version, Huey, Dewey and Louie's old French names have been used ("Oscar, Désiré et Nestor" instead of "Riri, Fifi et Loulou")

 

Then, in 1984, for Donald's 50th birthday, Marco Rota drew the story "Buon Compleanno, Paperino", in which we discover Donald's biography, and in which he redrew the first scenes of the Taliaferro strips... In this new story, the name becomes Della again, which doesn't bother me much, but as the letter is retranscripted, she is Donald's COUSIN again!!! What a mess!

We could still assume that Della and Dumbella were different persons but...
 

In 1993 comes out Don Rosa's "Duck Family Tree", which is based on Barks' first version of his sketches for Donald's family tree, with some additions and changes. This tree is also inspired by Worden's, and a lot of characters look the same or have common points in both trees. Here, Don Rosa gave her back the name Della, first because it was the original, first used name, but also because "Thelma" came from nowhere and didn't go as well with "Duck"... Her portrait is inspired by Worden's Thelma. Don Rosa didn't show this, but he thinks Della's husband is Daisy's brother, which would explain the name "Duck" which Huey, Dewey and Louie carry. Unlike Worden did, Rosa chose not to show Huey, Dewey and Louie's father on the tree.

 

In the two last episodes of Don Rosa's "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" series, from 1994, we can see young Della Duck in cameo appearance with her mother Hortense, her father Quackmore and her brother Donald. Don Rosa made them be twin brother and sister. Then, we could wonder if they were born in the same egg or in different eggs (well, the possibility of the Ducks giving birth like mammals is also an hypothesis). Don Rosa would have loved to write a story which would explain the history of Della and her husband, but wouldn't be allowed to do so by his actual publishers, as it would be impossible to make a story in any acceptable way to explain why parents could abandon their children like that, unless they are dead, which is also unacceptable in Disney comics. But maybe someday he will be allowed to draw the story for another publisher (French Picsou for instance).  Della also made a cameo appearance in a panel from "The Sign of the Triple Distelfink", from 1997, still by Don Rosa. In Don Rosa's "W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.", from 1997, Scrooge tells to Donald that if his niece had asked him to take care of her children, he wouldn't have let them subscribe to the "Junior Woodchucks" club. In Don Rosa's "The Duck who never was", from 1994, we can see that if Donald wasn't born, Gladsone Gander would have been asked to take care of them instead.

Della also made a guest appearance in a set of collector cards in Poland.

 

Finally, in "Miss Duckstad" ("Miss Duckburg", H 94168), from 1996, by  Frank Jonker, Bas Heymans and Peter Collé, Donald disguises himself into a girl, and is accidentaly elected Miss Duckburg. When he just disguised himself, he tells he is so well disguised that people could think he is his "twin sister". This may not have anything to do with Della, but I wanted to mention this story...

Gilles MAURICE
goofy313g@free.fr
http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/