Wandering Wednesday 3 Part one Fitzgerald Museum

I woke up with the intentions of heading to Montgomery for Wandering Wednesday.  I was planning on leaving the house by 8:00 am with the first stop being the Montgomery Zoo, because I wanted to see the baby Rhino. However, I got a later start, so decided to bypass the zoo, and see how I was on time after hitting the other places I had planned.

I chose not to take back roads today, but to take the interstate in the interest of time. The only thing interesting on the trip down was the man taking pictures of my van. He was pretty close to the rear of my van and I thought he was texting with his phone held above his steering wheel, so thinking he might rear end me if we had to make a sudden stop, I hit the gas and went around the car in front of me, just to get away from a person texting and driving.  To my surprise he followed me.  I relaxed, as he didn't have the phone  above the wheel anymore, but then he put it back up there.  Once again, I hit the gas and tried to get out from in front of him.  Much to my amazement, he followed me again.  Then he really got on my bumper. That was when I saw the flash. I realized he was taking a picture of the back of my van.  I don't have any real interesting bumper stickers : Bluegrass not Bombs, an Obama sticker, a Bright blue dot in a really red state sticker, a UWA alumni sticker and a coexist sticker. No personalized tag. Then it hit me, he was probalby taking a picture of my "family" on the back window.

Maybe this was his Facebook Status for the day. Who knows.  Or he is some crazy stalker guy with a friend who can run my tag and he is going to end up camped out in front of my house. Hmmmm.. if he has money or enjoys yard work, maybe we'll talk.

My first stop was the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum.  Now, I have always been a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald, enjoying his writing.  I must admit, I really didn't know a lot about Zelda.

When I got to the museum, I was a little confused, as while there was a sign in front, there was not a sign on the door. I slowly opened the door to the house and the first thing I saw was mailboxes  for apartments.  While it was never really explained, the museum is on the bottom floor of the house and it appeared as if people might live upstairs. I'm not sure.

As you can see from the sign, Scott and Zelda only lived in this house for a short time. He and Zelda met in 1918, while he was stationed at Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery. Zelda was born and raised in Montgomery, daughter of a prominent southern family. She and Scott were married in 1920. However, in 1930, Zelda suffered a mental breakdown and in 1931, when released from a Swiss Clinic, the Fitzgeralds moved to Montgomery, with the intention of settle there. The leased this home. However, Zelda suffered antoher breakdown in January f 1932 and was once again hospitalized. Scott stayed in Montgomery for a few more months, with their daughter Scottie, but left in April of 1932.

I let myself in and saw a group of people watching a video in the back room. I wandered in and then I saw the museum curator/guide, whatever his title is.  He told me to go on to the back room, or porch and watch the video with the others. The video was a brief review of the life of Scott and Zelda.

After the video, we were asked to step into the front room and the curator gave us about a 10 minute talk about the house and Scott and Zelda, pointing our a few of the artifacts in the room.  He was very knowledgeable, although on several occasions, gave some personal opinions about Zelda's state of mind.  He did always say, "this is just my opinion".

The museum  was filled with mostly books (imagine that!) photos, Zelda's paintings and letters. A few other items were in there. The museum was more or less two rooms and a library.

Here are some pics of a few of the items.

Zelda and Scott

one of Zelda's paintings