When Miss Emily Grierson died, the whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument.
May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
When she was alive, Colonel Sartoris, the town's previous mayor, had suspended Emily's tax responsibilities to the town after her father's death, justifying the action by claiming that Mr. Grierson had once lent the community a significant sum.
Emily's father had turned down most of her suitors. When he's father died, she had no more suitors. Every time when people stopped by to express their condolences about her father's death, Emily told them that her father was not dead.
When Emily meets Homer Barron, a single Northerner who is in town to oversee the construction crew making new sidewalks. When the town noticed they are spending time together, the town frowned upon the union.
When Homer enters the Grierson home one evening and then is never seen again. After some time passed, the door to a sealed upstairs room that had not been opened in forty years down by the town people.
Homer Barron's body is stretched on the bed as well, in an advanced state of decay. The onlookers then notice the indentation of a head in a pillow beside Homer's body and a long strand of Emily's gray hair on the pillow.