Scenes & Stories of Monroeville

Monroeville is a wonderfully welcoming town. Everyone I've met has been warm and kind and just a pleasure to get to know.

My first morning in Monroeville was spent at the "Scenes and Stories of Monroeville: To Kill a Mockingbird Seminar" at the Old Courthouse Museum. The Old Courthouse, built in 1903, is the courthouse in which Harper Lee's father A.C. Lee practiced law. It is now a museum with amazing exhibits on Harper Lee, Truman Capote, and important aspects of Monroeville. As I signed in at the registration desk, my accent gave me away as a Northerner right away. And I won the proverbial award for visitor who had traveled farthest to get to the Literary Capital of Alabama!

The first session of the seminar was "Growing Up with Harper Lee" with Anne Hines Farish, a classmate of Harper Lee and the former mayor of Monroeville, George Thomas Jones, and Charles Ray Skinner, both of whom also grew up with Harper Lee and her siblings. The second session was "Moments of Courage -- Against the Odds," featuring four African-American citizens of Monroe County. Lavord Cook, Jackie Denson, Mary Tucker, and Bernice Richardson discussed agriculture, education, and the Civil Rights Movement in the local Black communities. During the break between two sessions, I had the chance to talk with a volunteer about her own memories of Monroeville in the 1930s and 40s.

After the seminar, I was honored to be invited out to lunch at Radley's with Jane Ellen Clark of MCHM, several of the panelists, and a teacher from a school very much like USM in Montgomery, AL. What a delight! (And the secret recipe tuna salad was to die for, too.)

I was also invited to return to the Old Courthouse Museum to work in the MCHM's archives!