MONROEVILLE, Ala. — Alice Lee, the sister of the famous “To Kill a Mockingbird” author and an influential Alabama lawyer and church leader in her own right, died Monday at 103.
Lee practiced law until a few years ago, following the footsteps of her father — the model for small-town lawyer Atticus Finch, the driving character in “Mockingbird.” For a time, Lee was Alabama’s oldest practicing lawyer.
Perhaps most famously, Lee helped guard the privacy of her sister Nelle Harper Lee, who in 1961 won the Pulitzer Prize for her only published novel. Requests to interview Harper Lee often landed on the desk of Alice Lee, and the answer was always a firm but polite “no.”
Johnson Funeral Home in Monroe ville, the sisters’ longtime south Alabama home, posted an online notice saying Lee died Monday.
Retired United Methodist minister Thomas Lane Butts of Monroe ville said she had been in declining health for a few weeks and “her heart wore out.” Funeral arrangements were not complete, he said.
Butts said her death means all three of Harper Lee’s siblings are now deceased, and it will be a difficult time for the 88-year-old author.
Lee had an active real estate law practice until her retirement in 2012 and a reputation for knowing the real estate records in the Monroe ville area better than anyone else, said Keith Norman, executive director of the Alabama State Bar.
“She was legendary in that part of the state,” he said.
For years, Alice Lee was active as a leader in the United Methodist Church. She was the first and still only female to lead the Alabama-West Florida Conference delegation to the church’s general conference.
