For the UALR English Department, this is J. Bradley Minnick with Facts About Fiction.
Miss Jean Louise. Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.
As a girl, Nell Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, supposedly knew about the man she later immortalized as Boo Radley. The actual facts of the story are brief and terrible because they represent the skeletal remains of a life’s promise never fulfilled.
Here Are The Facts:
In 1928, Son Boleware and his friends Baggett and Sawyer were charged with the burglary of Foster’s Drug Store.
They were hauled before Judge Manny Fountain and sentenced to serve out their time at the Boys Industrial School. The parents of Baggett and Sawyer assented to the punishment, but Son’s father informed the judge that if given over to his custody, his boy would never cause any trouble again.
The epitaph on Son Boleware’s tombstone reads: To Live In Hearts We Leave Behind Is Not To Die.”