A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Characters

Owner of a candy store across the street from Charlie’s. He gets his name from the fact that he is lame. People in the neighborhood view him as a gentle, harmless man until he molests a little girl in the back room of his store.

A friend of Francie’s who is described as her “once-in-a-while girlfriend.” She is an orphan who lives with two unmarried aunts who work at home as seamstresses.

The driver of a horse-drawn wagon. He is a “nice” and handsome young man “with rosy cheeks,” and girls like to flirt with him. He later marries Flossie Gaddis to avoid being conscripted into the First World War, which he rightfully senses will soon involve the United States.

Flossie Gaddis’s brother. He is nineteen years old and looks healthy, but has tuberculosis and knows that he will soon die. Despite this, he is “avid for life” and does not understand why he is “doomed.”

Andy Nolan’s fiancée and Francie’s namesake. The elder Francie postpones her marriage to Andy, hoping that he will recover from tuberculosis, though he never does. Francie then makes a vow never to marry.

The doctor who delivers Aunt Sissy’s first live baby, Stephen Aaron. Sissy’s son is named after Dr. Aaronstein, whom she credits for reviving the baby when he emerged from her womb looking blue. Sissy takes Dr. Aaronstein’s hands and covers them with kisses, in gratitude for her son’s survival.

Aunt Sissy’s second child and the first live baby among the eleven to whom she has given birth. He is named after her third husband and the boy’s father, Steve, and the doctor who delivered and revived him, Dr. Aaron Aaronstein.

Anita’s boyfriend. He is a soldier who will soon enter the First World War. He is friends with Lee. When Francie first sees him, she notices a “short” and “stubby” young man who is “beaming” and holding Anita’s arm “possessively.”