I had no idea that Charles Schulz was first published in Ripley’s Believe It or Not until my family visited the museum named for him in Santa Rosa, CA. I was a big Ripley’s fan as a child and can recall the actual drawing from one of my books. The Peanuts comic strip was published on October 2, 1950.
Charles M. Schulz, an American icon and award-winning cartoonist
for over 50 years, was born in Minneapolis, MN, in 1922. His surname, Schulz, is of Old High German origin; his father’s parents, Carl Ludwig Schulz and Emma Alvine Auguste, emigrated from Germany in 1897. His maternal grandparents, Torgus Halverson, and Anne Sophie Borgen, were born
in Norway and met and married in Wisconsin in 1885. Although Schulz’s parents had third-grade educations, his father managed to earn a license to barber and support the family with his own shop. Coincidentally, Schulz married Joyce Halverson, who had the same maiden name as his mother Dena, though no relation.
While Schulz did not inherit his artistic talent from his family, they did encourage, influence, and inspire his creativity.
An uncle nicknamed him Sparky when Schulz was two days old – a reference to Spark Plug, a character in the comic strip Barney Google created by Bill DeBeck. Schulz and his father loved to read the Sunday funnies together; he was particularly fond of Mickey Mouse and Popeye and began to draw at an early age...
