Annie's stay at the Hooverville was pleasant to say the least, as the denizens welcomed her better than the Bixbys, let alone Hannigan. Randall "Randy" Whitworth Jr, a former stockbroker left destitute by the Depression) who, in the novelisation, are adult characters and a couple. She then spends several months living in the Hooverville with Sophie and the Apple Seller (who is named as G. She later spends the next few months on the run from the orphanage, initially spending the winter as resident staff in Bixby's Beanery, a low-grade café run by couple Fred and Gert Bixby, before escaping after she finds Sandy. Annie smuggles herself into the chute and out of the orphanage.
This didn't deter the orphan however, when Annie saw an opportunity by way of a laundry chute by a man named Bundles McCloskey. She also forces them to say, "I/We love you, Miss Hannigan." to her, which the orphans sarcastically or begrudgingly comply.įed up with the drudgery and yearning to find her true parents, Annie made her first attempt to escape from the orphanage, but not without getting caught by Hannigan. Annie has been miserable in the orphanage, no thanks to the orphanage's headmistress, Miss Hannigan, since Hannigan often forces Annie and the rest of the orphans into labor all while she spends most of her earnings to alcohol. She always hoped her parents would come to get her someday, counting each new year that has passed since. A young couple, the Bennetts knew no immediate relatives in New York or back in Iowa, and when Margaret fell ill with the Spanish Flu, her husband David left two-month old Annie at the orphanage in a last-ditch effort, leaving with the baby a note assuring Annie that they will be back for her. The novelization of the Broadway musical establishes that Annie was born to David and Margaret Bennett, two struggling and impoverished painters from Iowa who moved to New York in 1921 to study art at Cooper Union. While Annie had been under Warbucks' care for the majority of the series, only being out on her own from time to time during her numerous adventures, it wasn't until the JDick Tracy strip where she was formally adopted as Oliver's daughter, as opposed to being just his ward. Despite much persuasion from Daddy Warbucks, Asthma refused to divulge what she remembered about Annie's biological family, apart from being left as a founding in front of the home. I guess I must have been there, right from th' time I was born, almost." There were in fact family records for Annie and her parents, but these were lost when the orphanage was razed on November 18, 1928. Annie describes the first thing that she remembered: "Bein' in th' 'Home' and how mean Miss Asthma was. Kenneth Barker's article in Nemo, the Classic Comics Library #8 mentions that Annie had been in Miss Asthma's orphanage since infancy. Little is known or revealed about Annie's origins in the comic strips.