F. Scott Fitzgerald left an estate of about $35,000 in 1940, and the Catholic church refused his burial plot until his daughter petitioned in 1975

F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on 21 December 1940, aged 44. Gatsby had sold fewer than 23,000 copies by the end of 1925, and his book royalties were $80 in 1936. One source puts his last year's royalties at $13.13^†. A tax analysis cited by Duke University library puts his estate at about $35,000, mostly life insurance, and says appraisers thought the copyrights worthless. He had asked to be buried with his family at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. The church refused, and he was buried in the Protestant Rockville Union Cemetery. His wife Zelda, who died in a hospital fire in 1948, was buried beside him. In 1975 their only child, Scottie, asked parish officials to move them. They were reburied at St. Mary's, and a priest told the Washington Post the church believed it important to consider his "God-given talents and literary genius." Scottie died in 1986 and is buried in the plot. One source says Gatsby royalties support her children's trust at about $500,000 a year^†.