J. Powers - Suitable Accommodations - An Autobiographical Story of Family Life - The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963

Jim

Jim and Betty were married on April 22, 1946.

KERKER QUINN

150 Summit Avenue

April 26, 1946

Dear Kerker,

[…] I was married last Monday. Please tell Chuck in case he wants to offer up a litany or two for my wife and me. It will be rough and tough on both of us, no doubt.

Pax,

Jim

Jim, the 1931 Chevrolet, and Stearns County

Upon his marriage, Jim left the Marlborough and St. Paul and moved with Betty into her parents’ summer cottage on Big Spunk Lake in the little town of Avon, Minnesota (population approximately 880). The Wahls — Art, Money, Pat, John, and Tom — took up summer residence on Memorial Day weekend. Jim and Betty decamped to a small boathouse, an outbuilding of the cottage. The situation, with its constant family activity and common meals, was not a happy one. Betty and Jim were waiting for a house that was being built for them — by Art’s workmen — on land bought by the Wahls for the couple as a wedding present. It was in the Avon woods, some three miles from St. John’s.

CHARLES SHATTUCK

Avon

Memorial Day 1946

Dear Chuck,

Very glad to hear from you and that the stories are all right.1 […] I am sorry to be so reticent about my wife, about getting married, if I have been. I automatically figure it’s unimportant to other people. […] Well, we are living in a cottage owned by my wife’s folks. They are moving out here in a few days, however, and we will move 20 steps nearer to the lake, to this little 10 x 15 house I’m writing in now. It has a big window on the lake, which is called, amusingly enough for any reader of Joyce, “Big Spunk.” Now, Big Spunk, it seems, was an Indian chief, but I never think of him so much as of Molly Bloom when I hear a native pronounce the name. I get out on the dock and cast for large fish, using one of those plugs which always struck me as spectacular and incredible in Illinois. To date I have caught one fish, not counting bullheads (that I call catfish, after the fashion in Morgan County, Ill.) and two perch, a four-pound black bass. He was out of season, so I had to toss him back, thus creating the illusion that I am now a law-abiding citizen. The truth of it was I thought him too beautiful to cut up and eat. I guess that takes care of my private life and the local color. […]

Gratefully,

Jim

CHARLES SHATTUCK

Avon, Minnesota

July 15, 1946

Dear Chuck,

A note to let you know I am still here, did not come to Chicago after all. It will be later, I think. My reason for deserting this seeming paradise was that days go by and I get nothing written, being too occupied with the little body politic, the trials and tribulations of living too close to too many people. […] I do not fit into the pattern of life I find here. There is too much to deal with all the time: meals, dishes, company, humor, all the product of another unit, my wife’s family, on whose good graces we seem to presume, and their time is not my time, nor their ways my ways. We have no open difficulty. It is just that I constantly fail to come up to their idea of a son-in-law. And inside me there is a constant dialogue that never gets spoken aloud. Once I would have tried to cut a path through them. Now, no more. I retire. They think I am physically ill. I say, going along, I feel a little better now, each time I’m asked. […]

Pax,

Jim

Jim and Betty (who was expecting a child in March) traveled to Brewster, on Cape Cod, and lived in a house belonging to friends of Harry Sylvester’s. They intended to remain there until January 1947.

CHARLES SHATTUCK

Brewster, Massachusetts

October 8, 1946

Dear Chuck,

[…] So far Brewster has been very much to our liking. We have had clams, mussels, and oysters from the bay, and I like all those. The worst thing is not having a car, making us dependent on the Sylvesters, even for milk (nobody will bother to come down here where we are). The next worst thing, now more under control, is the fleas. The people who own the house have a dog, and the dog has fleas. The people and dog are gone, but the fleas are always with us.

[…] Pax,

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Brewster by the Shore

Tuesday, November 19, 1946

Dear Father Egan,

Rec’d your letter some time ago and very happy to have it, to know we are missed, and not in the usual way, in Minnesota. […] Betty is fine. You knew, I think, from reading a letter from Harry last summer, in which it came up, that she is to have a baby in March. Should we call it Harvey or Savonarola? I guess with the war over, and Russia the bête noire again, Dr B. is having a field day with his pamphlets and addresses to the dear ladies. I hope you are still on his list. I see from The New York Times Book Review (which we read avidly here, being authors, all of us) that “ Our Sunday Visitor described The Scarlet Lily as ‘a bang-up, gripping word picture of Mary Magdalene.’”2 Bruce is also publishing a “thought provoking book for everyone interested in the future of America”— After Hitler Stalin? Or Blessed are the PeacemakersDefenseworkers and Those with Deferments. That’s what I like about us Catholics, books like that, coming like now. Enough for now. Pax.

Jim

Any rumors about who’s taking over Ray’s job with the Saints?3

Betty suffered a miscarriage on December 12 and returned to Minnesota by air to stay with her parents at their home in St. Cloud. Jim spent a few days in New York, then traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit his friend John Haskins before going to Chicago to stay with his parents. He spent a couple of weeks, including Christmas, there.

BETTY POWERS

4453 North Paulina Street, Chicago

Christmas Eve 1946

Dear Betty,

It is about ten o’clock, and all through the house not a creature is stirring except me, Mickey, and my grandmother. The tree is lit up and going; there is a red candle burning in the window; the presents have been opened; and my brother is out and also my parents. I have written two notes to people. Now you, after much sitting and staring into the tree, wondering how it’s going with you, if the presents are opened there, if you are having refreshments (eggnogs and toddies unlikely, on consideration, probably coffee). It is another sad Christmas for me, the third or fourth in a row, and I no longer know why, only think I’ve seen my last merry one. Oh, yes, my grandmother insists that I tell you she has not forgotten you but can’t get out and shop, a fact which is manifest but which puzzles her nonetheless. […]

So glad you like the house. So sorry the water and electricity aren’t coming around. Don’t get yourself frustrated over that. I don’t have any idea how much money we have — though it’s safe to say not much — but again I think we ought to pay people, I mean the plumber, for services rendered. I thought so after other occasions of charity, and so did you, if I remember. I miss you very much, Betty. You must know that. I am hoping, but despairing, that our life in the future will not be aggravated as it has been in the past. I trust you got my wire, Merry Christmas, Betty, this afternoon and knew it meant more than that. You know how you have to put it in a wire and will realize it was that which kept me from saying more. I say it now. I love you. Do not be downhearted. Remember some of the things we have learned together about us.

Jim

BETTY POWERS