IVAN'S DAY: HERALDING MAUDIE

Our last contribution from Ivan regarding "The Church Bell" episode of 'Mayberry RFD' is also the easiest one to splain away......

The woman on the [left] is actress Maudie Prickett, whom rerun watchers will no doubt remember as Rosie, housekeeper Hazel Burke’s gal pal on the sitcom 'Hazel' starring Shirley Booth. This will be Prickett’s only appearance on 'R.F.D.' as Lydia—but she makes four additional appearances on the show as a townsperson named Myrtle in later episodes, beginning with the second season episode “The Mayberry Road.” So, again—you have that whole Siler City/Mayberry doppelganger thing at play. To confuse matters even further, Prickett played another Mayberryite on 'The Andy Griffith Show', Edna Larch. So what would happen if Myrtle and Edna ran into each other, say, in church? I’m not sure I even want to contemplate the cosmic Toobworld implications.

We can thank the outdated custom of a woman becoming her husband's property by taking his last name in marriage. Lydia, Myrtle, and Edna are sisters. With Lydia and Myrtle, we never even learn what their last names are, so that eases up the conflicts right there. With Edna Larch, it's her married name; most of the episodes list her as "Mrs. Larch". (I like to think Edna was the mother of Emma, who would eventually get engaged to Bobby Gribble.)

So maybe Lydia and Myrtle never married and they share the same last name as Edna's maiden name. (Edna Larch is pictured below in "Goober's Replacement".)If you want to drag other Maudie Prickett characters into it, like Rosie from 'Hazel', then maybe you can make the case that the father of Lydia, Myrtle, and Edna was a philanderer. (And he must have been loaded with girlie sperm.) Most of her other characters are located out in California, so I'd treat all of them as a separate situation - either due to a highly potent ladies' man or some secret lab facility during World War I which dabbled in cloning.....

Of course, this doesn't provide a splainin for Aunt Bea's sister Nora looking just like Mrs. Larch and the triplets...... That'll need some more thinkin'.....

BCnU!