September 24 marks the birthday of literary legend F. Scott Fitzgerald, born in 1896 and remembered as one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century. Best known for The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s ties to Montgomery County run deeper than many realize… he is buried right here in Rockville.
Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda are laid to rest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church Cemetery, located just off Rockville Pike. The author, who was raised Catholic, had struggled for years to be buried in consecrated ground after his death in 1940. Initially, the Catholic Church denied him a plot at St. Mary’s due to his reputation for hard living and the circumstances of his death from a heart attack at age 44 in Hollywood. For many years, he rested in a non-Catholic cemetery in Rockville. It wasn’t until 1975, more than three decades later, that he and Zelda were reinterred at St. Mary’s following a petition by their daughter, Scottie.
Visitors from across the country still come to Rockville to visit Fitzgerald’s grave, which is marked by a simple stone engraved with the famous closing line from The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The connection to Rockville wasn’t born out of Fitzgerald’s literary life, but rather through his family. His father, Edward, had deep Maryland roots, and Fitzgerald himself often spent time in the Washington DC area throughout his life. Rockville’s cemetery became his final resting place thanks to those family ties and his daughter’s persistence.
Today, the gravesite is one of Montgomery County’s quiet landmarks, often adorned with flowers, coins, and even bottles of gin left by admirers paying tribute to Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age legacy. On his birthday, especially, visitors are reminded of the brilliance and tragedy that marked his short life, and of the unique fact that one of America’s greatest writers is forever linked to Rockville, Maryland.
