Alabama lawyer Alice Lee died on Monday of this week. She was 103. That she lived into her second century by itself remarkable, as was the fact that she still practiced law up to two years before her death. It was equally remarkable that, as a woman in the traditional South, she began her law practice before World War II, following the career of her father, A. C. Lee. But the main reason Ms. Lee is known outside of her home town Monroeville, Alabama is her sister Nelle Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most acclaimed novels in history.
Some say that Alice and Nelle’s father was the model for Atticus Finch, the protagonist of Mockingbird. The lawyers and judges in Monroeville said that Alice could have been a model for Atticus as well. Being a real estate lawyer in Alabama, I am sure she knew something about entailments. And I would not be surprised if she was paid in kind from time to time, if not with sacks of hickory nuts.
Not long ago, she was reported to have said she had a good life. R.I.P.
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