Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896, the Scott Key is from his second cousin three times removed from the author of the National Anthem. Fitzgerald’s given name indicates his parents’ pride in his father’s ancestry. His father, Edward, was from Maryland, with an allegiance to the Old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mary (Mollie) McQuillan, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul. They were both were Catholics. He died on December 21, 1940. He is often regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories.