In the modern world, the reach of newspapers often proves amazing. They find ways to travel all over the world.

Sometimes it happens when people tap into web sites; at other times the paper that you hold in your hands is sent to unexpected destinations. In both instances, an article can cover vast distances and end up in unexpected places.

I often hear of this column getting to readers in distant parts of this country, and sometimes in other countries as well.

That happened recently to a column I wrote about my Aunt Mary. During our childhood, she exhorted my siblings and me to behave like members of another family in her home town of Peabody, the Duffs.

Sure enough, my recollections reached some members of that family in the far reaches of America. The route seems to have gone something like this: a woman in Peabody read that column and sent it to a friend in Florida.

Then a woman from Salem visited that Florida resident and saw my piece. The Florida resident then sent it on to California where the youngest Duff read it. In turn, he sent it on to his siblings scattered around the country.

Thus far, two of that fabled Duff family have contacted me by telephone. To my relief, they both enjoyed the column and took pleasure in talking with me about their growing-up years.

Just as the Duff children, in those long-ago days, were presented to me as models of behavior, so I had wondered in the column whether they were now models of maturity.

To my shock, I discovered that, as children, they behaved pretty much like other kids. And, now as adults, they disavow any claims of being models of anything.

What most surprised me was a revelation from Brian Duff, now a federal judge in Chicago. Born in 1930, he came third in the birth order of that 10-child family.

He revealed the presence in his extended family of a counterpart to my Aunt Mary. Like the latter, Brian’s Aunt Bessie taught for many years at Peabody High School and the two aunts knew one another well.

In the mode of my aunt, the Duffs’ Aunt Bessie was in the habit of exhorting her nieces and nephews to imitate the impeccable behavior of another family. I would like to report that the other family was the Griffins─that would have given an amusingly ironic twist to the story.

But, no, the Duffs were urged to imitate the behavior of the Noonans, a family that then lived in Brookline. To Aunt Bessie, the Noonan children were paragons of good conduct and could be held up to emulation. She would often remind Mrs. Duff of how she should call her children’s attention to these models of good conduct.

As Brian Duff now remembers it, various breaches of decorum bothered his aunt. For instance, the boys would often leave their shirttails hanging out. And the boys were accustomed to play football in their back yard and get covered in mud, something the Noonans would never have done.

Whatever their childhood mischief, the Duff siblings would appear to have become upstanding adults. Besides Brian, I have heard from Brendan Duff, the youngest of the ten. He lives in California and now works in transportation, after a career in the Marines.

Sadly, three of the Duffs have died: Paul, the oldest; Roderick, and Sheila. John, the second oldest, is an orthopedic surgeon, now retired, who lives not many towns distant from the family’s home city of Peabody.

Brian describes them all as “a large extended family covering the country.” When they have organized family reunions, accommodations have to be made for over a hundred people.

In all this time, I have never met any of the Duffs. That fact gave an eerie quality to my aunt’s praise of them as models of behavior. To me, they remained abstractions, children whom I could fantasize about who would never have to undergo the test of reality.

Being in telephone touch with two of them so many decades later brings me back to childhood with all of its mysteries. My recollection of those days remains spotty, as it has always been. Mostly, I can remember only some high and low lights from those days.

They don’t make aunts like Mary and Bessie anymore. At least, I don’t observe the ones I know now trying to impose models of behavior on their nieces and nephews. Realistically, they recognize how such efforts would be laughed out of court by the children of today.

However, I am glad that Mary and Bessie tried to do it with the Griffin and the Duff children. In this effort, they made a lasting contribution to the lore handed down by both families.

And they provided column fodder and fascinating reminiscences for this former child, so long after the time when those aunts flourished.

Richard Griffin