Harper Lee's Sister, Alice, Dead at 103

Alice Lee, the sister of the famous To Kill a Mockingbird author and an influential Alabama lawyer and church leader in her own right, has died. Johnson Funeral Home in Monroeville, the south Alabama home of Alice and Harper Lee, has posted an online notice saying Lee died yesterday. No cause of death was given, and the announcement says arrangements are incomplete. Lee was 103 and practiced law until a few years ago. For a time she was Alabama's oldest practicing attorney.

Lee also helped guard the privacy of her famous sister Nelle Harper, who in 1961 won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel about racial injustice in the South. Alice Lee was active for years as a leader in the United Methodist Church in south Alabama, which has an award named in her honor. A memoir a few years ago claimed to have had the cooperation of the sisters; they fought back. (More Harper Lee stories.)