Alabama hometown was refuge of privacy for author Harper Lee

(AP) — This south Alabama town with a domed courthouse and tree-lined streets served as both a literary inspiration and a place of refuge for "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee.

Residents easily point out locations depicted in both books, including the historic Monroe County Courthouse.

Here, before a stroke and failing hearing and eyesight limited her mobility, Lee wasn't the hermit often depicted by news outlets.

[...] she was the woman in the pew at the First United Methodist Church, the shopper on the bread aisle at the grocery store, the golfer who enjoyed playing a round with sister Alice Finch Lee, who died in 2014 at age 103.

Neighbors knew all about Lee's dislike for the media and for surprise visitors, so they would rarely direct outsiders to the red-brick home where she lived with her sister for years when not in New York.

Yet Lee was perfectly at ease and happy during a luncheon held last summer in the days before the release of "Watchman," said Alabama tourism director Lee Sentell, who attended the event and drove Lee home afterward to The Meadows, the senior center where she lived.