In "Uncle Willy" Mrs. Hovis is among the ladies who try to reform the title character. She alternates with Mrs. Merridew in staying with Willy "day and night" for three days as part of the plan to keep him away from morphine (229). It seems likely that, like Merridew, she is a member of Reverend Schultz's congregation.
"Mrs. Christian" (the narrator of "Uncle Willy" gives her no other name) is a prostitute in Memphis whom Willy marries on one of his regular trips to the city, and an affront to most of Jefferson when he brings her back to his house. She is "twice as big as Uncle Willy," and visually conspicuous in her clothes - "a red hat and a pink dress" (236), "a red-and-white striped dress so that she looked like a great big stick of candy" (237), "a black lace dress" (238).
In "Uncle Willy" Hoke Christian first opened the drugstore that his son Willy still owns before the Civil War. He seems to have been a much more exemplary member of the community than Willy, but it's hard to determine his class. In addition to his business, he owned at least one slave, Job, and slave-owning is a characteristic of Yoknapatawpha's upper class families. Talking about Willy, Mrs. Merridew refers to "that position in the world which his family's name entitled him to" (232). But Mrs.
The Memphis man whom the narrator of "Uncle Willy" identifies as "Captain Bean at the airport" refuses to teach Willy how to fly without a certificate from a doctor but is willing to teach Secretary, Willy's black driver - which seems to flaunt the rules of segregation (241). His title suggests he may be an ex-World War I aviator, like many other flyers in Faulkner's fictions, but that is conjecture.
Since his store is on or near the street in Jefferson that the narrator of "Uncle Willy" calls "Nigger Row," it's possible that Sonny Barger is black, but more likely that he is one of Jefferson's white small businessmen who cater to poor people of both races - like Willy in his drugstore (234). The fact that Barger sells the narrator a bottle of "Jamaica ginger" - a legal form of alcohol - suggests a seedy kind of establishment (234).
In "Uncle Willy" Mr. Barbour is the narrator's Sunday school teacher at the Protestant church. He is apparently willing to let Willy sit in on the class, but he never calls on him.
Georgie, the narrator of "That Will Be Fine" calls his father "Papa," but his actual name is also George. He is "in the livery-stable business" (268), and has no illusions about the dynamics of his wife's family or the character of its black sheep, his wife's brother Rodney. When his wife's sister Louisa, for example, rationalizes Rodney's promiscuous behavior by pointing to his lack of opportunities "to meet a nice girl and marry her," George says: "Marry? Rodney marry?
The man with the badge outside Grandpa's house in Mottstown in "That Will Be Fine" reminds Georgie of "Mr. Watts at Jefferson that catches the niggers," so it seems safe to say that Watts is either the sheriff or one of the deputies or, perhaps, the town marshal (277). The fact that all the people he catches are black probably reflects the fact that most arrested people in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha are black, not that Watts has a special commission to catch Negroes.
In "That Will Be Fine," these two men prevent Georgie from seeing his uncle's corpse. One of them picks up Georgie and carries him away. This man has a sense of irony worthy of Faulkner himself. When Georgie naively asks if the "wrapped bundle" that other men are carrying (Rodney's corpse, "wrapped in a quilt" and laid on a shutter) is "a Christmas present for Grandpa," this man replies yes, "From all the husbands in Mottstown" (286).
