The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee by Marja Mills Page B
Authors: Marja Mills
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the feature section, grew longer, but after a year of rest and additional treatments, I was no closer to being able to return. I still had good days but they were unpredictable.
But what if I was in Alabama for those good days? Alice’s willingness to share her stories with me in her nineties was a gift. It was also an unexpected opportunity to research and write at a slower pace on a project that felt tailor-made for someone like me. Nelle had already told me several things she thought I could write about and correct regarding “the forty-year file on Harper Lee.”
Just as Nelle’s retreat from fame was a series of small decisions, asopposed to one sweeping pronouncement, their decision to let me into their lives as fully as they did had not stemmed from one grand declaration but, rather, was a gradual process. They kept encouraging me to come back south, and on each trip they would share more of their lives and their history with me. Slowly but surely, the idea of a longer sojourn in Alabama took hold.
Chapter Nine
E ven before my move, I was becoming part of the Lees’ social circle and, as such, was included in their regular get-togethers. In early 2004, I was staying with Haniel and Judy Croft. Haniel was the retired president of what was then the Monroe County Bank. They invited Nelle and Alice and me to watch the Super Bowl on the big-screen television in their living room. We’d settle in to see the New England Patriots play the Carolina Panthers in Houston and then have dinner. “Marvelous,” Nelle said of that invitation.
I looked forward to it as much as they did that week, even though the only Super Bowl games I remotely enjoyed watching over the years were in Black River Falls. Those I enjoyed not for the football but for the sound of my grandfather’s deep voice mixing easily with my father’s and brother’s above the television commentary and the din of the crowd.
For years, Nelle and Alice had their own tradition for watching football games. They loved watching the Crimson Tide in particular. They had no television in the house, Alice told me, until Julia was hired in 1997 and insisted. Nelle had suggested the same more than once, but it took Julia to get a small set across the threshold. She wasnot about to miss her game shows. After that, during football season, Alice would join Nelle in the back bedroom to watch the games. Before the dawn of the television age in the Lee home, the two sisters would make the seven-block drive to the Monroe County Bank building, below Alice’s law office, and watch the weekend’s best games in a conference room.
Sometimes Nelle watched University of Alabama games at the home of her high school English teacher, Gladys Burkett. This was in an old house on North Mount Pleasant Avenue, a few blocks off the town square. It was there that Nelle got to know Dale Welch. They met over football but bonded over books. “I think she appreciated that I was a teacher and a librarian. We had a lot to talk about,” Dale told me. A friendship quickly blossomed and soon they were meeting for coffee or lunch at Radley’s.
Like many in their circle of friends, the Lees were a mixed family when it came to football in Alabama. Their brother had attended Auburn. That gave it special status. But Nelle had attended the University of Alabama, and she and Alice gravitated to the Crimson Tide. If you ever want to drive down an empty thoroughfare in Monroeville, do so when Alabama is playing Auburn.
Their other great sports passion was golf. In fact, both Alice and Nelle had once played the game regularly at the Vanity Fair golf course. Nelle told a journalist in the early 1960s that the course provided her a quiet place to think. They particularly looked forward to the Masters every April. As Alice told me, “We usually root for the underdog.” Later that same spring, the Lees got a thrill cheering for Phil Mickelson at Augusta, where he won his first major at long last.
As
But what if I was in Alabama for those good days? Alice’s willingness to share her stories with me in her nineties was a gift. It was also an unexpected opportunity to research and write at a slower pace on a project that felt tailor-made for someone like me. Nelle had already told me several things she thought I could write about and correct regarding “the forty-year file on Harper Lee.”
Just as Nelle’s retreat from fame was a series of small decisions, asopposed to one sweeping pronouncement, their decision to let me into their lives as fully as they did had not stemmed from one grand declaration but, rather, was a gradual process. They kept encouraging me to come back south, and on each trip they would share more of their lives and their history with me. Slowly but surely, the idea of a longer sojourn in Alabama took hold.
Chapter Nine
E ven before my move, I was becoming part of the Lees’ social circle and, as such, was included in their regular get-togethers. In early 2004, I was staying with Haniel and Judy Croft. Haniel was the retired president of what was then the Monroe County Bank. They invited Nelle and Alice and me to watch the Super Bowl on the big-screen television in their living room. We’d settle in to see the New England Patriots play the Carolina Panthers in Houston and then have dinner. “Marvelous,” Nelle said of that invitation.
I looked forward to it as much as they did that week, even though the only Super Bowl games I remotely enjoyed watching over the years were in Black River Falls. Those I enjoyed not for the football but for the sound of my grandfather’s deep voice mixing easily with my father’s and brother’s above the television commentary and the din of the crowd.
For years, Nelle and Alice had their own tradition for watching football games. They loved watching the Crimson Tide in particular. They had no television in the house, Alice told me, until Julia was hired in 1997 and insisted. Nelle had suggested the same more than once, but it took Julia to get a small set across the threshold. She wasnot about to miss her game shows. After that, during football season, Alice would join Nelle in the back bedroom to watch the games. Before the dawn of the television age in the Lee home, the two sisters would make the seven-block drive to the Monroe County Bank building, below Alice’s law office, and watch the weekend’s best games in a conference room.
Sometimes Nelle watched University of Alabama games at the home of her high school English teacher, Gladys Burkett. This was in an old house on North Mount Pleasant Avenue, a few blocks off the town square. It was there that Nelle got to know Dale Welch. They met over football but bonded over books. “I think she appreciated that I was a teacher and a librarian. We had a lot to talk about,” Dale told me. A friendship quickly blossomed and soon they were meeting for coffee or lunch at Radley’s.
Like many in their circle of friends, the Lees were a mixed family when it came to football in Alabama. Their brother had attended Auburn. That gave it special status. But Nelle had attended the University of Alabama, and she and Alice gravitated to the Crimson Tide. If you ever want to drive down an empty thoroughfare in Monroeville, do so when Alabama is playing Auburn.
Their other great sports passion was golf. In fact, both Alice and Nelle had once played the game regularly at the Vanity Fair golf course. Nelle told a journalist in the early 1960s that the course provided her a quiet place to think. They particularly looked forward to the Masters every April. As Alice told me, “We usually root for the underdog.” Later that same spring, the Lees got a thrill cheering for Phil Mickelson at Augusta, where he won his first major at long last.
As
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