Editing Zora Neale Hurston (section)

==Death and Legacy==
During a period of financial and medical difficulties, Hurston was forced to enter St. Lucie County Welfare Home, where she had a [[stroke]]. She died of [[hypertensive heart disease]] on January 28, 1960, and was buried at the Garden of Heavenly Rest in Fort Pierce, Florida. Her remains were in an unmarked grave until 1973.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Walters |first=Tim |date=2020-02-25 |title=Black History Month: Zora Neale Hurston died alone, her belongings almost burned. Now there is a festival in her name. |url=https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2020/02/25/black-history-month-zora-neale-hurston-died-alone-belongings-almost-burned-there-festival-her-name/1643050007/ |access-date=2023-01-20 |website=The Palm Beach Post |language=en-US |archive-date=January 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102101720/https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2020/02/25/black-history-month-zora-neale-hurston-died-alone-belongings-almost-burned-there-festival-her-name/1643050007/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Novelist [[Alice Walker]] and fellow Hurston scholar Charlotte D. Hunt found an unmarked grave in 1997 in the general area where Hurston had been buried; they decided to mark it as hers.<ref>"Charlotte Hunt, renewed interest in author Hurston", ''[[Tallahassee Democrat]]'', 25 March 25, 1997</ref> Walker commissioned a gray marker inscribed with "ZORA NEALE HURSTON / ''A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH'' / NOVELIST FOLKLORIST / ANTHROPOLOGIST / 1901–1960."<ref name="Plant2007">{{cite book |author=Plant |first=Deborah G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZfcDixewEYC&pg=PA57 |title=Zora Neale Hurston: A Biography of the Spirit |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-275-98751-0 |page=57 |access-date=May 2, 2018 |archive-date=January 7, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240107181021/https://books.google.com/books?id=aZfcDixewEYC&pg=PA57 |url-status=live }}</ref> The line "a genius of the south" is from [[Jean Toomer]]'s poem, "Georgia Dusk", which appears in his book ''[[Cane (novel)|Cane]]''.<ref name="Plant2007"/> Hurston was born in 1891, not 1901.<ref name="autogenerated17"/><ref name="hurston5"/>

After Hurston's death, a yardman, who had been told to clean the house, was burning Hurston's papers and belongings. A law officer and friend, Patrick DuVal, passing by the house where she had lived, stopped and put out the fire, thus saving an invaluable collection of literary documents.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Walters |first=Tim |date=2020-02-25 |title=Black History Month: Zora Neale Hurston died alone, her belongings almost burned. Now there is a festival in her name. |url=https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2020/02/25/black-history-month-zora-neale-hurston-died-alone-belongings-almost-burned-there-festival-her-name/1643050007/ |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=The Palm Beach Post |language=en-US}}</ref> For two years, he stored them on his covered porch until he and a group of Hurston's friends could find an archive to take the material.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tawa |first=Renee |date=2003-03-31 |title=Hurston: The world stands corrected |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-31-et-tawa31-story.html |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> The nucleus of this collection was given to the [[University of Florida]] libraries in 1961 by Mrs. Marjorie Silver, a friend, and neighbor of Hurston. Within the collection is a manuscript and photograph of [[Seraph on the Suwanee]] and an unpublished biography of [[Herod the Great]]. Luckily, she donated some of her manuscripts to the James Weldon Johnson Collection of [[Yale University]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/aaexhibit/manuscripts.htm | title=George A. Smathers Libraries: Dept. Of Special and Area Studies Collections. African American History in Special Collections | access-date=June 8, 2023 | archive-date=June 14, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230614121752/https://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/AAexhibit/manuscripts.htm | url-status=live }}</ref> Other materials were donated in 1970 and 1971 by Frances Grover, daughter of E. O. Grover, a Rollins College professor and long-time friend of Hurston. In 1979, [[Stetson Kennedy]] of Jacksonville, who knew Hurston through his work with the [[Federal Writers' Project]], added additional papers. (Zora Neale Hurston Papers, University of Florida Smathers Libraries, August 2008).