La Paix…I Went to Pre-school in F.Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda’s House

I went to kindergarten or day care, when I was very young, at a place that no longer exists…..

I was in Rodger’s Forge, near where we lived in Baltimore, Towson to be exact, on a property called La Paid. La Paix Lane Nursery is one of my earliest memories. The house was huge and beautiful.

The house was occupied by F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, for a time. Zelda was a troubled soul, schizophrenia, who was in and out of Sheppard Pratt mental hospital. Sheppard Pratt is still there and we used to walk around the grounds and hang out in the woods when we were you hippies. Scott was a series alcoholic. I believe her finished “Tender is the Night” there. They personified the “Great Depression”. It was their time…..They tore down La Paix in 1962

I remember my sleeping blanket and taking naps with he other kids on the floor.

My biggest memory is that there were 3 or 4 little multi-story houses in the garden, built for mice to live in….and they did. The looked like doll houses and had little holes for door but you could see that mice lived there and, sometimes, see the mice. I can see that garden very clearly, in my memory, although I must have been 3-4 years old at the time.

It’s a cool thing to look back on.