Everybody knows `The Great Gatsby´ or `The Beautiful And Damned´. Everybody knows Francis´and Zelda´s exuberant lifestyle. But where are the  Fitzgeralds buried? Père Lachaise in Paris? Green-Wood in Brooklyn? Maybe in a fancy garden of some otherwordly mansion by a water´s edge? Nope. The answer is disappointingly trivial: They are buried at Saint Mary´s Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. Yes, a catholic cemetery in the middle of suburbia (a.k.a. in the middle of nowhere), between the tracks of Metro´s red line and Rockville Pike. It sounds a little sad, but it´s actually not so bad. In spite of the not so romantic location, the cemetery itself is a nice and relatively peaceful place. Many dead actually don´t mind about their whereabouts anyway. Shaded by old large trees the plot is a little wild, a nice and typical feature of many american cemeteries. A real graveyard where the dead create their own orderly arrangements. Here comes the morbid romantic touch back into play. Of course the Fitzgeralds didn´t live in Rockville, but this is where the family clan lies buried. Scott died in Hollywood befitting his unglamorous glam-life, and Zelda died in a fire at a mental hospital in North Carolina. Both were first buried at the historical Rockville Union Cemetery, but after a transformational "re-Catholicizing" process, were moved to the rest of the Fitzgerald family at Saint Mary´s. This is also the final resting place of their only child, Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith, a journalist and writer in her own right.

By the way, Scots full name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was named after a distant relative, the famous poet who wrote the American anthem (read a blog about Key, the anthem and the flag here).

The last sentence of the Great Gatsby.

Amongst the Fitzgerald clan.

Suburban Rockville has expanded into a urban landscape in its own right.

On the other side of the main road the trees and churches of St. Mary reflect in a corporate building.

Next to the entrance.

Church work is political work, political work is polarization - even when executed by children.

The old church of St Mary´s with the cemetery in background.

Was a mass held here for Fitzgerald? It is assumable.