List of The Hardy Boys Characters - Aunt Gertrude

Aunt Gertrude

Gertrude "Trudy" Hardy is the unmarried aunt of Frank and Joe Hardy (the Hardy Boys of the title) and the sister of their father, Fenton.

She was known to have a peppery temper and on more than one occasion to go "on the warpath". She owns an old Volkswagen Beetle. In the Undercover Brothers series she goes by Trudy, and sometimes Frank and Joe call her Aunt T.

In some installments of the original series, Gertrude appears to be a full-time resident of the Hardy household. In others, she is often present for a visit, sometimes brief and sometimes extended. Her maternal care for the boys doesn't seem to put her in any conflict with the brothers' actual mother Laura, but her characteristics — genial overbearingness, comic frettiness, moral disapproval — make her a much more developed character. In the TV series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries, the mother has been completely written out and Aunt Gertrude has become Frank and Joe's only maternal figure.

Gertrude frequently expresses her maternal care for the boys and their friends through her cooking, and it is generally agreed (particularly by the occasionally gluttonous Chet Morton) that she excels in this area.