September 24, 1896 marks the birth date of F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the foremost twentieth century American writers. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, young Scott was christened Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, in honor of his second cousin three times removed, Francis Scott Key, the author of the National Anthem. His father, Edward, brought breeding, charm, and a sense of elegance to the family, although as a businessman, he experienced only marginal financial success. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mollie McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who made a fortune in the wholesale grocery business. Although she came from a family of means, she had little interest in society life, except as it regarded her son’s future. The family lived comfortably on the outskirts of the city’s most fashionable residential neighborhood, Summit Avenue, thanks largely to the generosity of the McQuillan family. Although the Fitzgeralds lived just blocks from the city’s most elegant and wealthy families, they were not considered rich and therefore were perched precariously on the community’s social hierarchy. They possessed what some critics have come to call “a certain genteel shabbiness.” It seems likely much of Fitzgerald’s interest in society life began in his youth in Minnesota when he would play and associate with the rich children of the neighborhood — dancing, sailing, swimming, sledding — all the time knowing he was never entirely a part of their society.
The Fitzgeralds lived in Minnesota on and off during Scott’s youth. When his father’s business folded in 1897, the elder Fitzgerald took a job the following year as a salesman for Procter and Gamble, consequently moving his family to New York, first to Buffalo, then Syracuse, and then back to Buffalo. He was fired from his job in 1908, and just months before Scott’s twelfth birthday, the family returned to St. Paul where the McQuillan family still lived. From that point, the Fitzgeralds essentially lived off the McQuillan family fortune. Although Scott would call St. Paul home from 1908 to 1922, he was often not there. Rather, he spent much of that time at boarding school, at Princeton University, in the army, and in New York City.
