What is Miss Maudie's relationship to the Finches and the rest of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird?

First of all "Miss" Maudie Atkinson is not a spinster,
like some of the other "Misses" that appear in To Kill a
Mockingbird. (The children call her "Miss," as they do some of the
other women, as a sign of old-fashioned respect.) Maudie is a widow, like Atticus, and
the daughter of Dr. Frank Buford, whose "profession was medicine." Dr. Buford was a
neighboring landowner, and Maudie Buford had grown up near Finch's Landing before moving
to Maycomb. (Little, if nothing, else is mentioned about her husband, Mr. Atkinson, or
the circumstances of his absence.) She inherited her love of flowers and gardening from
her father, whose

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obsession was anything that grew in the ground,
so he stayed poor.

Maudie had
known Atticus and brother Jack Finch for at least four decades, and Jack had jokingly
been asking Maudie to marry him for many years.

Maudie
lives across the street from the Finches and serves as a mentor and confidante to the
children, especially Scout, who

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had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had
never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested
in our private lives. She was our
friend.

She is a true and
loyal friend to Atticus as well, and she supports him and his legal decision to take on
the case of Tom Robinson. She explains to the children that Atticus is no ordinary man,
but one who the entire town counts upon.

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     "... there are some men in this world who
were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them...
    
"We're so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we've got men like Atticus
to go for us."