NOTES ON CARL BARKS

I went to work for Carl Barks in July of 1994. I always called him Mr. Barks.

Just after I was hired to stay nights with him - 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. - he left for a 3 weeks tour to several European countries for Donald Duck's 60th birthday. He wanted someone in the house while he was gone and a lady came during the daytime to stay with him. He didn't use a cane while I worked there. He was very youthful for a man in his 90's.

His home was on Heritage Drive in Grants Pass, Oregon, and was large with three bedrooms and three bathrooms upstairs, as well as a den. Downstairs was his large studio and a bedroom and bath.

There were 13 steps on the stairs to go downstairs to his studio and every evening just before retiring Mr. Barks would walk quickly down the stairs and back up. I thought this was amazing as he was in his 90's. There was an electric seat to one side of the stairs for his wife that had died before I knew him, but he didn't use it.

Being a very shy and private man, he at first wouldn't let me come downstairs to watch him work at his drawings, but eventually he let me come down and watch and he showed me drawers full of his works. Also there were large pictures he had done all over the walls.

Mr. Barks was always neatly dressed in a shirt and slacks - even at breakfast. He was meticulous in his dress and wouldn't go outside his home without a suit and tie on.

We sometimes went out to dinner and I always made sure he wasn't facing the public as he was nervous about someone recognizing him and coming over to the table to talk.

I worked for Mr. Barks for two and a half years and left at the end of that time to get married.

In the mornings we would have breakfast in the dining room overlooking Grants Pass, and he always insisted on making his own bowl of cereal and I would make us toast and coffee. I would go outside to get the newspaper and we'd read it and comment. I always enjoyed that as he had a wonderful sense of humor and frequently made me laugh. I would stay later than 8am as I enjoyed that time with him.

He always kept a pad and pencil beside him wherever he was sitting, and was constantly working on Donald Duck ideas - even while he was watching TV in the evenings. He liked to watch the travel shows on TV that shoved trains traveling through countries in Europe.

I had a bedroom and bath on one side of his home and he had a bedroom and bath on the other side. We had an intercom so he could call to me in the night if he needed me.

His managers - a man and a woman - lived next door in a house that Mr. Barks owned. I didn't care for either of them and was relieved when he finally fired them. I didn't trust them. The woman was very brisk and bossy with Mr. Barks and I didn't like that as he was a very kind and gentle-type person.

I was studying Spanish while I worked for him and he delighted in helping me by picking up and using words I was trying to remember.

He loved little children and brightened up immediately when they were around.

Mr. Barks told me he was born in Merrill, Oregon (which is close to Klamath Falls and east of Grants Pass), and that he had drawn from the time he was young, and that he was always drawing on the walls of their home when he was a boy.

One morning we were having breakfast and reading the paper and he mentioned that the Walt Disney Co. wanted him to put together a portfolio of Donald Duck pastels and he needed one more idea, but couldn't think of one. I had just returned from the coast and had seen a dolphin and mentioned that he might think about putting Donald Duck riding on one. I went back to reading the paper and suddenly he shoved a drawing at me that had Donald Duck riding a dolphin and coming up out of the water holding onto a harness! He was so pleased and included it in the portfolio. Of course I was happy that he'd liked my idea.

On Mr. Barks' first birthday after I started working for him, my sister Audrey Parks, who has a talent for embroidering, decided to make him a pillow using one of the pictures of Donald Duck in one of his older black and white comic books. When he saw the pillow he froze and stared at it - she was afraid he was mad. He said, "Where did you get this?". She told him she'd copied it out of his comic book and used the color of threads that she thought he might've put on it if he'd colored it. He started laughing and said he knew he'd made it black and white and the colors she'd used were exactly what he would've used. He put it on his sofa and showed it to everyone that came and was so proud of it.

Mr. Barks told me that he was the first person to put Donald Duck into a comic book and that he'd written all the stories himself. A truly amazing man.

At Mr. Barks' funeral service there were people there from all over and many people stood up and read papers telling about his personality and how much they'd gotten from knowing him. It was very hard for them to read without crying - these were men trying not to cry and showing how much they had cared about him. A wonderful tribute to him. At the end of the service a man read a paper that said Carl Barks had made reservations at a beautiful, local restaurant for anyone who had attended his funeral that wanted to have dinner there afterwards on him. This was so like him and the atmosphere at the restaurant was very upbeat as he would've liked it, and you could almost feel him there with us smiling. A wonderful gesture from a great and kind man.