Zelda Fitzgerald in ballerina outfit

Zelda Fitzgerald dies in hospital blaze

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Late on the night of March 10, 1948, a fire started in a kitchen of the main building of Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Spreading rapidly through a dumbwaiter shaft, flames reached every floor, and, in spite of efforts by hospital staff and local fire fighters to evacuate everyone from the building, nine patients died. Among the victims of the fire, identified only by her slipper, was Zelda Fitzgerald, who with her husband, the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, represented for many the talent, sophistication, glamour and excess of American life of the 1920s.

Highland Hospital burns, Asheville NC
Highland Hospital burns, Asheville NC

Highland Hospital, originally known as “Dr. Carroll’s Sanatorium,” was founded in 1904 by Dr. Robert S. Carroll, a distinguished psychiatrist. His program of treatment for mental and nervous disorders and addictions was based on exercise, diet and occupational therapy, and attracted patients from all over the country. The hospital was relocated from downtown Asheville to the northern end of Montford Avenue in 1909, and was officially named Highland Hospital in 1912. Dr. Carroll gifted the hospital to Duke University in 1939.

In 1928, Zelda Fitzgerald had decided to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a professional ballerina, and had begun taking lessons in Paris from a famous dancer. But at that late age (she was born in 1900), three years of intense eight hour a day ballet work damaged her health, and prompted her first mental breakdown, diagnosed as “nervous exhaustion,” in 1930. On May 22, after hearing voices and exhibiting delusional behavior she entered a clinic in Switzerland. On June 5 she entered another hospital near Geneva, Les Rives de Prangins. At Prangins she was diagnosed by Dr. Oscar Forel as schizophrenic.

Zelda would reside in and out of hospitals for the rest of her life.After she was released from Prangins on September 15, 1931 she returned to the United States. On February 12, 1932 she entered the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of the Johns Hopkins University outside of Baltimore. During her stay there, she wrote her first and only novel: Save Me the Waltz, which was an almost autobiographical account of her life up to that point.

Zelda Fitzgerald self-portrait, early 1930s
Zelda Fitzgerald self-portrait, early 1930s

Zelda’s creative output also included a play, Scandalabra, several short stories and articles, and a large number of paintings, paper dolls, and sketches—some of which were intended to be passed on to her daughter and grandchildren. She began a second novel in 1942, “Caesar’s Things,” which was never finished but which covered ground similar to her first book.

In April, 1936 Zelda checked herself for the first time into Highland, where she remained until April, 1940. By then estranged from Scott, she instead headed back to her childhood home in Montgomery, AL to live with her mother. She sought out Highland once more in August 1943 for a six month stay, again in early 1946 through the end of that year, and checked in for what became her final stay in November 1947.

Mary Porter worked at Highland and was involved in Zelda’s treatment. She described that experience in an interview with Zelda’s biographer, Nancy Milford:

We were very careful with Zelda; we never stirred her up. She could be helped, but we never gave her deep psychotherapy. One doesn’t do that with patients if they are too schizophrenic. We tried to get Zelda to see reality; tried to get her to distinguish between her fantasies, illusion and reality. This is not easy for a schizophrenic. The psychotherapy was very superficial…She often rebelled against the authority, the discipline…She didn’t like discipline, but she would fall into it.

Dr. Irving Pine, Zelda’s last psychiatrist, believed (too late) that she may have actually had severe untreated bipolar disorder. He speculated after her death that the cause of her breakdowns may have been as much from her husband’s mental bullying and her treatment for her disorder as the disorder itself.

sources: https://blueridgecountry.com/newsstand/magazine/the-tragic-death-of-zelda-fitzgerald/
www.nps.gov/nr/travel/asheville/hig.htm
www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html
Bryer, Jackson R. & Barks, Cathy W. (eds.). (2002), Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, New York: St. Martin’s Press

The Secret Role of Zelda Fitzgerald

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8 comments

  1. My mother was a friend of Zelda’s and a patient at Highlands. She survived the fire by breaking out the locked window. I wish to invite any information anyone may have about this, as we are putting this into our family history. I can share stories our mother told us and invite response to catsnorth@aol.com. God bless them and all of you. Dean S. DeSoto, San Antonio, Texas

  2. I hadn’t thought of Zelda Fitzgerald in connection with Appalachian history, but I see that she truly does have a tie. Thanks for this post and for reminding us about her life and her tragic death.

  3. Our stories will always nourish the soul -may there rise up a band of writers willing to place others stories into history too.

  4. I knew that she died in that fire, but I was only eight at that time, so only know that she was locked in her room with no way of escaping the fire and was probably asleep at the time. I would like to know who the house belonged to before it became Highland Hospital and remember that it was also a nursing home at one time. I would visit some lady there with my mother, and there was a beautiful statue in the house. I think this must have been another building, because the house is still there.

  5. I was two and a half years old and lived about a half mile away from Highland Hospital on Tacoma Circle at the time of the fire in March of 1946. I have no recollection of it but I heard my parents talk about it often.

  6. My father was Arthur Marvin DeBruhl and was Building Inspector for the City of Asheville, North Carolina the night of the fire. My mother roused me out of sleep and said that I must go with my father to a fire at Highland Hospital.

    I was fourteen at the time. We raced from home in West Asheville and arrived within minutes. Dad knew the way, having lived all his adult life in Woodfin or Buncombe County. I stayed with him until early the next morning. We were there when they brought the bodies out wrapped in bed sheets. The smell was dreadful.

    My father being the Building Inspector, he conferred with Chief Fitzgerald during the entire time. At some point a decision was made to let it go. There was some issue with water pressure.

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