"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," by Betty Smith

 It is easy to grow despondent when thinking of the large number of great books I will never read. In a typical year, I read about 30 books, which is less than many of my friends read. But I am not a speed reader and often make notes of passages that I like. Of course, reading books is in addition to newspapers, magazine articles, and reports. But when I think of the number of books out there and of the fact that perhaps 200,000 books get published each year just in the U.S. it is easy to become discouraged – so many books and so little time.

 

Nevertheless, this novel is special. The poverty Betty Smith wrote of was beyond my comprehension, but there was, apparently, little complaining. And it was fascinating to realize this book, written by a woman of a time thirty years earlier, was one of the most popular stories read by American soldiers during the Second World War, one of whom was my father. Many American soldiers, I am sure, could identify with tenements like those in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, and as she was writing of a time that, to them, was not that distant.

 

Perhaps this short essay (under 600 words) will entice you. 

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Burrowing into Books

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

March 2, 2024

 

“Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and

water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth. And it’s strong because

its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.”

                                                                                                A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943)

                                                                                                Betty Smith (1896-1972)

 

It was the Ailanthus tree, known as the tree of heaven in its native China and which became invasive in North America, that Ms. Smith used as a symbol of hope and perseverance for her heroine Francie Nolan in this coming-of-age story, in the poverty-stricken Williamsburg section of Brooklyn during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century: “No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree that struggled to reach the sky…it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.” 

 

While the story is fictional, Ms. Smith used her own life as inspiration. On August 22, 1943 Meyer Berger wrote of the book in The New York Times: “…a stringing together of memory beads...” In an interview for the magazine This Week, Ms. Smith was quoted: “To live, to struggle, to be in love with life…is fulfillment.”

 

While the story takes place thirty years earlier, the book was published in 1943, as World War II devastated the planet. The book became immensely popular. Shortly after publication, it was released in a paperback Armed Services Edition[1]. Within two years it had sold nearly three million copies. 

 

It is Francie Nolan’s story of growing up, with her brother Neely, in (unimaginable to us) urban poverty. Williamsburg at the time was home to first-and-second generation immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and Italy. As well, there were streets primarily inhabited by Jewish immigrants and African-Americans. Assimilation was just beginning, as Francie’s mother was German and her father Irish.

 

Despite the poverty that enshrouds their lives in Brooklyn, Katie’s mother Mary Rommely speaks of their reason for emigrating: “In the old country, a man is given to the past. Here he belongs to the future. In this land he may be what he will…” She tells her daughter there are two great books, Shakespeare and the Bible. So Francie and Neely grow up, having a page from each read to them every evening.

 

Francie’s father was loving, but an alcoholic who died young. Her mother was the breadwinner, cleaning apartments. Francie was bright, a good student. At age ten, confused between truth and fancy, she recalls the best advice she ever got from a teacher: “Write the story. Tell the truth. Then you won’t get mixed up.” And she realized the answer to poverty: “Education would pull them out of the grime and dirt.”

 

The story ends with another tree, a cherished Christmas tree that had sickened, burnt and died, but from which seedlings grew: “It lived!” Francine reminisces.  “And nothing could destroy it.” 

 

 

 

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[1] In a letter to my mother on September 23, 1944, my father wrote of reading the book when at Camp Swift in Bastrop County, Texas: “I’ve almost finished it. I think it’s really good. I get quite wrapped up in it.” So did I.