Florence Zimmerman

Florence Zimmermann is a fictional character who appears in several children's gothic horror novels written by John Bellairs and Brad Strickland.

The books are set in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the fictional town of New Zebedee, Michigan. Florence is the next-door neighbor of Lewis Barnavelt and Jonathan Barnavelt and is introduced in the first book in the series, "The House with a Clock in Its Walls", as an elderly witch, but a woman firmly on the side of good.

In the second book in the series, "The Figure in the Shadows", Mrs. Zimmermann loses nearly all of her magical powers doing battle with an evil ghost that is attempting to send Lewis to his death. Nearly eighteen months later, in the summer of 1951, her magic is restored following a trip through time. During this adventure, it is revealed that her power was awakened while she was studying under Hilda Weiss "Granny" Wetherbee, whose powers had been similarly awakened by her mother's stepfather when she was a child. Grandpa Drexel prepared a crystal identical to the one she had received from Granny Wetherbee, which, after her return to 1951, restores her powers. As the crystal has spent over a hundred years buried in the earth (as opposed to the originally intended seven years), her restored powers are stronger than before.

Her favorite color is purple: she favors purple clothing, decorates her house in a purple scheme and even has a purple car. The car, a Plymouth named "Bessie", started as green (though she ordered a maroon one). Mrs. Zimmermann changed it to purple when she recovered her powers in "The Ghost in the Mirror".

Besides the Barnavelts, Florence develops a friendship with the teenaged Rose Rita Pottinger. Despite their age difference, their relationship is sisterly.

Books in the Lewis Barnavelt series in which Florence appears

*"The House with a Clock in Its Walls" (1973)
*"The Figure in the Shadows" (1975)
*"The Letter, The Witch, and The Ring" (1976)
*"The Ghost in the Mirror" (1993)
*"The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder" (1993)
*"The Doom of the Haunted Opera" (1995)
*"The Specter From The Magician's Museum" (1998)
*"The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge" (2000)
*"The Tower at the End of the World" (2001)
*"The Whistle, The Grave, and The Ghost" (2003)
*"The House Where Nobody Lived" (2006)
*"The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer" (2008)