‘First flapper’ Zelda Fitzgerald died in fire at NC psychiatric hospital 73 years ago
.jpg "Author Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald poses with his wife Zelda Sayre and his daughter Scottie in their apartment in Paris, France on July 16, 1925.")
It started with an electric coffee urn in the downstairs kitchen and left only a red leather slipper in its stead.
The fire that engulfed a psychiatric hospital in Western North Carolina on the night of March 10, 1948, was able to spread quickly through a dumbwaiter shaft before it laid waste to the hallways where patients slept, according to historical record. Hospital staff and firefighters were reportedly only able to rescue 11 of the women.
An employee would later say they “first rushed to save the helpless patients, hoping that the others would save themselves,” according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
If the rumors are to be believed, all that was left to identify one of the victims when the smoke cleared the next morning was a slipper.
It belonged to a 48-year-old Zelda Fitzgerald — the acclaimed novelist, “first American flapper” and wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was one of nine patients likely trapped on the upper floors who died in the blaze 73 years ago.
The hospital
The fabled story of Highland Hospital in Asheville began with its founding in 1904 by Dr. Robert S. Carroll, Mountain XPress reported. It was known at first as “Dr. Carroll’s Sanatorium” and was used to treat “people with mental and nervous disorders and addictions,” N.C. DCR says.
The hospital was officially named Highland Hospital in 1912, according to the National Park Service, where it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
Highland’s administrative records — including building plans, periodicals and magazines — now belong to the Duke University Medical Center Archive. Many showcase how Dr. Carroll’s treatment plans centered on diet, exercise and occupational therapy.
Financial records indicating how much the hospital spent on insulin, however, also point to a “prevalent use of shock therapy — not at all uncommon for the time period,” researchers at Duke found.
Dr. Carroll eventually gifted the facility to the Neuropsychiatric Department of Duke University in 1939, which owned it at the time of the fire and until the 1980s.
The Fitzgeralds
Zelda Fitzgerald was first admitted to Highland Hospital while it was under Dr. Carroll’s ownership in 1936, according to Blue Ridge Country. Her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was staying at Asheville’s Grove Park Inn while recovering from tuberculosis at the time, NPR reported.
The hospital was known as a respite for the wealthy and well-known, according to NPR, and Zelda Fitzgerald would spend the next 12 years “drift(ing) in and out” of the facility. At the time, doctors believed she had schizophrenia.
But Dr. Steven Buie, the final medical director of Highland Hospital, told NPR that bipolar disorder was likely a more accurate diagnosis.
“She had periods of depression and then she would have periods of high energy and creativity,” he said, according to the radio station.
The Fitzgeralds’ storied romance had seemingly run its course by the the 1930s. They married in 1920 and lived an opulent life in the decade that followed, with F. Scott Fitzgerald coining his wife’s nickname: “The first American flapper.” Their popularity eventually waned, and he descended into alcoholism while she struggled with her mental health.
Zelda Fitzgerald was rarely visited by her husband during her early stint at Highland, NPR reported.
She was eventually released to stay with her mother in Montgomery, Alabama, according to N.C. Pedia, but she returned to Highland several times “for brief periods of treatment” in the years that followed. F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in Hollywood during this time.
The fire
It was shortly after 11:30 p.m. on the night of March 10, 1948, when a nurse discovered a fire in the kitchen of Highland Hospital’s central building, Mountain Xpress reported.
The flames were accelerated by the dumbwaiter shaft, which was “lined with plaster and mason boards, rather than the required metal sheets,” according to the media outlet. The building also didn’t have a sprinkler system, the fire escapes were made of wood and many of the windows had bars on them, Blue Ridge Country reported.
Dean DeSoto’s mother befriended Zelda while at the facility and managed to escape. He told WLOS “she squeezed between the bars, climbed over a building and down the burning fire escape.”
“Smoke and steam from the burning structure began to die down [at] about 9:30 a.m. And the sun burned through mist and clouds at about the same time,” a reporter for the Asheville Citizen wrote in an article two days after the fire, according to Mountain Xpress.
No one was ever charged in connection with the deadly fire, but a coroner’s inquest would later show Zelda and four others “had been given strong sedatives to induce sleep,” Blue Ridge Country reported.
The remaining hospital buildings have since been sold, and an office park and shopping plaza now sit on the property, according to N.C. Pedia.
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 3:35 PM with the headline "‘First flapper’ Zelda Fitzgerald died in fire at NC psychiatric hospital 73 years ago."
