D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 • M a r i e m o n t, O h i o • Vo l u m e X L I , N o .
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Charlie Brown's Lucy is from Mariemont By Joan Welsh With the holiday season upon us many enjoy viewing favorite movies together. Holiday Inn, It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation may be some titles you enjoy, but one of the most endearing Christmas movies of all time is the 1965 “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Did you know that the character of Lucy Van Pelt was named after a Mariemont resident? John Kiesewetter of Cincinnati.Com writes “A Charlie Brown Christmas reminds me of my 2007 story about how Lucy Van Pelt was inspired by Louann Van Pelt of Mariemont. She knew “Peanuts” creator Charles “Sparky” Schulz in the early 1950s, when they both lived in Colorado Springs. Louann Van Pelt was 11 in 1940 when her family moved from Iowa to the Mariemont area. She and her future husband, Fritz, graduated from the old Plainville (now Mariemont) High School. The Van Pelts moved in 1947 to Colorado where Fritz was a teacher. Fritz and Charles (nicknamed Sparky) Schulz were in the same 20th Armored Infantry
Division during WWII. In an interview for the PBS show “American Masters: Good Ol’ Charles Schulz” Louann states, “when we accidentally found them in Colorado, we became fast friends, taught them to play bridge, and loved them and their then two children.”
Around that time Schulz was honing his “Peanuts” comic strip and its cast of characters, led by Charlie Brown. And that’s how Louann Van Pelt influenced the character of Lucy, according to her son, David Merrill. Louann recalled, “Sparky created Lucy while in Colorado Springs in 1951. He did remark once that he didn’t think my nickname of Lou was suitable. He tacked on the Van Pelt surname after they moved back to Minneapolis when Sparky became syndicated. It was sort of a way to say ‘Hi!’ to us who always read the strip.” “Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography,” by David Michaelis, reports the newlywed Schulzes went four months without making any friends
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in Colorado Springs until they met the Van Pelts. Louann Van Pelt agrees with “American Masters” and Schulz biographers that Lucy’s blunt, domineering personality came from Joyce, the cartoonist’s first wife. “We have always felt that Lucy is fashioned after Joyce. She was very opinionated,” Van Pelt says. “I always hasten to tell people I’m actually much kinder than Lucy and would never snatch that football away” when Charlie Brown wanted to kick it. Of all the Peanuts characters, Lucy is perhaps the strongest personality, a know-it-all who hands out advice in her front-yard psychiatrists’ booth. For that reason, Merrill says his mom did not always enjoy the comparison. Lucy’s younger brother Linus was named because the letter “L” would help fit with Lucy’s name, according to the Michaelis book. Louann Van Pelt died in 2015, leaving behind three children and several grandchildren. Schulz died in 2000. When you next view “A Charlie Brown Christmas” you may enjoy knowing this charming Mariemont connection. I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.