MONROEVILLE, Ala. (AP) – The southern Alabama town of Monroeville seems destined to be linked to Nelle Harper Lee, even after her death.
Lee, who died Friday at age 89, drew inspiration from her hometown for the fictionalized Maycomb, the setting in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Tributes to the book dot the town.
Ann Mote, owner of the Ol’ Curiosities & Book Shoppe in Monroeville, said she thinks the town will always be linked to Lee. Lee’s family said in a statement that she will be laid to rest in a private ceremony.
Jared Anton, of Hollywood, Florida, on Saturday sat outside the old courthouse in Monroeville during part of planned vacation through the South that coincidentally coincided with Lee’s death.
Anton said reading the book – in which attorney Atticus Finch defends a wrongly accused African-American man – was one reason he decided became a lawyer.
“This is beyond the borders of Monroe County and Monroeville itself,” Anton said of Lee’s death.
“It had an impact on me when I was younger. I wanted to do the right thing, to stand up to people, to defend the innocent if you will,” Anton said. “It is the greatest American novel. Name one that really has had more of an impact on Americans than that book.”
Mockingbirds chirped and frolicked among blooming camellia bushes outside the old county courthouse on a warm Alabama morning that teased the early arrival of spring.
The courthouse was where Lee as a child, like her creation Scout Finch, would peer down from the balcony as her father tried his cases in the courtroom. The southern town was home to childhood friends Truman Capote and Lee, giving rise to its self-given nickname of the literary capital of the South, but it is Lee that is most linked to the town
“She’s a part of it and always will be,” said Ann Mote, owner of the Ol’ Curiosites & Book Shoppe in Monroeville.
Tributes to Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel dot the southern town. The courthouse is a museum that pays homage to her creation. There’s the Mockingbird Inn on the edge of town and a statute of children reading, “Mockingbird” in the courthouse square.
Tickets for the city’s annual “Mockingbird” play go on sale in a week for the city’s annual “To Kill A Mockingbird” play, Mote said. A black mourning bow donned the top of the sign at the bookstore, where a stack of hardcopy “Mockingbird” books sat the counter along with a DVD of the movie.
The town this summer had a celebration for the release of “Go Set a Watchman” – Lee’s initial draft of the story that would become “Mockingbird” – even though many residents had ambivalent feelings about its release
However, Lee, for years was largely unseen in her hometown, as she first sought privacy and then was secluded at an assisted living home. Security guards would shoo away the inevitable mix of reporters, curious onlookers and old acquaintances who were not on her list of approved visitors.
“You would see her around but still we would honor her wishes of being a very private person. The impact from now forward I think for the next few weeks we’ll have an influx of people in here just looking around and at some point – like when anybody passes away – at some point it just returns back to normal,” said Tim McKenzie, chairman of the museum’s board of directors who also acts in the play.
McKenzie said the best way fans can honor the author’s memory is by applying the values in Mockingbird to the way they treat others.
“That story, I’m glad it’s in just about all the schools now because it’s a story that everybody needs to hear,” he said. “If you adhere to the values she put in that book, if everybody did, we’d be living in a much better world.”