Ms. Alice and Ms. Nelle were all about empowering women even back before that became the popular thing to do. Ms. Nelle was a great woman who loved to sit and talk to my sister about life and love and the things girls talk about.”Bryan Sellers, former neighbor
Photo shows Lee with President George W. Bush in 2007 when he awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Photo credit: Reuters)
BIRMINGHAM – Alabama lost one of its most valued treasures on Friday, Feb. 19 when Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Harper Lee, passed away in her sleep in her hometown of Monroeville at the age of 89.
Published in 1960, her overnight sensation, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” soon found its place on the required reading lists for many schools, with generations of readers citing it as a favorite.
Born in Monroeville in 1926, Nelle Harper Lee, Ms. Nelle to friends and family, was the youngest of four children born to A.C. and Francis Lee. Lee was closest to her eldest sibling, Ms. Alice Lee, who was fifteen years her senior.
Alice Lee would be the key element in her baby sister’s sense of safety and privacy. “Nelle wasn’t Scout like everybody always thought. She was Boo, so she needed a protector. That was Ms. Alice,” said Bryan Sellers, family friend.
The elder sister, a fierce attorney much like their father, began her law career in the 1940s after graduating from Birmingham School of Law and practiced until the age of 100. Alice Lee died in 2014 at the age of 103.
Due to the sisters’ desire for privacy, fierce loyalty to each other and Alice Lee’s keen law skills, most Harper Lee fans could only speculate about her as a person. But, most fans didn’t grow up across the road from her and go to Monroeville First United Methodist Church with Alice and Harper Lee, when the latter was home for the winter.
Sellers, a Birmingham teacher and Monroeville native, did happen to grow up in that house across the road and go to church with the Lee sisters.
“We moved into the house across from Ms. Nelle around 1981. She had been living there with her sister, Alice, since the 70s at least,” he said. “She would split her time between New York City and Monroeville, leaving New York to come home each year around Halloween and then going back up north after Easter services at church. She hated to fly, so she traveled by Amtrak. I would drive her to Tuscaloosa to catch the train after the service to Evergreen stopped.”
On the day of Harper Lee’s death, with many news outlets on their way to Monroeville, Sellers was concerned. “My mama is mad because the entire world is heading to the neighborhood right now. If the BBC gets in her yard again and trounces her azaleas, she might get after them with a pitchfork!”
Alice Lee and Bryan Sellers’ father John Sellers, the Sellers family patriarch and beloved community and church leader, were more than neighbors. They were friends, serving side by side on countless boards and organizations throughout Monroe County. Each left a lasting, positive impact on the town of Monroeville after their deaths.
“The Lee sisters came from strong Methodist stock, so they were good friends with my dad. After the church split about fifty years ago, we all went to Monroeville First United Methodist Church where Ms. Alice was the highest ranking layperson for decades,” said Sellers.
While Harper Lee was known to be religious, she was not a teetotaler, according to Sellers. He shared, “She smoked cigarettes up until the stroke and was known to visit the neighborhood poker game and have a drink back in her day.”
Harper Lee described her political leanings as “old Whig” and was known to be frugal throughout her life. When staying in her New York City home, she lived in a rent-controlled apartment overlooking Central Park, where she managed to live in complete anonymity despite her fame.
When home in Monroeville, however, it was common to see her “at the local Dollar General store shopping the dollar rack for loungewear, her preferred everyday wear. She was so proud that she was paying less for them than she had in the 1970s!” said Sellers.
“Ms. Alice and Ms. Nelle were all about empowering women even back before that became the popular thing to do. Ms. Nelle was a great woman who loved to sit and talk to my sister about life and love and the things girls talk about. I was just the little kid brother who asked too many questions,” Sellers laughed.
“She wasn’t receptive to any talk about the book. When I was real little and before I knew any better, I would ask her about it and she’d always say, ‘You’re too young!’. She was right. I was too young to understand.”
Sellers smiles as he remembers.
“I bet she’s up in heaven right now with my daddy and Ms. Alice sitting on a front porch smoking a cigarette!”
Since Ms. Alice’s passing in 2014, the house across the street has been sitting empty, a symbol of the void left in the neighborhood and community by the Lee sisters.
To us, Harper Lee was larger than life and wrapped in mystery. We are missing who we think Lee might have been. A gifted teacher in Birmingham is missing his neighbor and dear family friend.
Editor's Note: CullmanSense ran an earlier article featuring Mr. Sellers on Friday, Feb. 19 shortly after Harper Lee's passing. This is the extended version. You can read the earlier article here: http://cullmansense.com/articles/2016/02/19/remembering-harper-lee.
