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

Hockey fan and wife need roomy apt suitable for salon. Baby but …

Have you an apt to rent to famous author, critic, lecturer and wife and offspring? Could coach basketball or baseball.

Friend of Rev. R. Bandas10 desires living quarters in or near Cathedral. Homeless today. Is this tomorrow?

Will the Saints get out of the cellar in ’48? Will young author, wife, child? What have you?

Ex — second baseman needs a home near Cathedral and Lex. Has batted against Fritz Ostermueller’s brother.

Homeless horseplayer, wife, and child seek living quarters and floor space adjoining suitable for handbook in exchange for reliable turf information.

Dear Fr Egan,

I have been mulling over the housing situation, as you can see from the above, but can’t quite settle on the best angle. Fr G. was here for a few days during which Betty was in St Cloud and we lived the full life out here. Now he has gone to Quincy. He wanted me to go, but I was just strong enough to refuse. He threatens to run ad like #2 above in Mpls paper, but Betty says we do not want to live there, only St Paul, only near the cathedral, so I must head him off before he returns this week Thursday. Things are not too bad here, at least not for me (very hard on Betty with no water and diapers all the time), and I was thinking for a time at Mass this morning that it might work out. I get little flashes like that, though this one might have been due to the fact that I worked until 5:00 a.m. last night. I think it was Bp Schenk11 kneeling up in front this morning, but couldn’t be sure, he wouldn’t turn his head. Had a lot of trouble with his skullcap, though, kept falling off.

Thanks for the clip on Harry and Msgr Smith. I don’t know which one is wilder. I kept wondering who the good Catholic publications were that Msgr Smith had in mind. The Register , I suppose, for one; the Visitor for two; and Sign, Extension , and the Catholic World . Spare us, O Lord. Why don’t we start a magazine called Puck , with you doing a column called In the Sin Bin? Wish I could be there for the Winter Carnival. Looks awfully good in today’s paper.12

Pax,

Jim

A possible four-room apartment in St. Paul found by Father Egan fell through.

HARVEY EGAN

Avon, Minnesota

1948

Dear Father Egan,

[…] I rec’d a note from Fr Judge13 (remember him, healthy-looking fellow in a black suit?) with a ten spot enclosed & I would not have thought a few months ago watching them saddle up under the trees of Saratoga that $10 could mean so much. […]

Letter from Sr Eugene Marie, still flourishing, and her brother’s wife or somebody in St Paul will look for a place for us and let you know if anything ensues. I’m afraid, though, we won’t get the vision of four rooms again, which I liked the sound of, thinking I could have my mother and father visit sometime. When I took my solemn vows, I did not understand that I would have to forgo the sight of my father and mother, rather dear to me, but that’s the way it turns out; I do get to see Art and Money, however. We were in today, always a struggle, lugging the wash around and water cans and baby.

I do take advantage of the occasion, though, to pick up a Pioneer Press and Chicago Trib , and the latter has the complete morning lines and results, and that keeps me handicapping far into the night. I am thinking of inserting a little ad in The Commonweal , asking that readers who have subscriptions send me their old copies of the Racing Form . A world of good reading. I am disgusted with the Saints. Every time I tune in Halsey Hall,14 they have dropped another. Yes, I am dust … but some of my best friends are clergymen.

Jim

ROBERT LOWELL

Avon

April 1, 1948

Dear Cal,

Glad to get your letter today. Please tell Jarrell15 at once that I am grateful he thought of me, but it doesn’t seem like my kind of place, just as Bennington doesn’t, from whom I’ve heard again. I told you, or did I, that they hired somebody else for the spring quarter but would pay my expenses there for an interview with an eye to next fall. I must write to Burkhardt, the president, right away and tell him I’m not coming. I think I’m going to Marquette. I had a talk with them a month ago in Milwaukee: good, Champish characters, and I’d have only six hours a week—4:30 to 6:00 at that, the lost part of the day anyway for me — and they’ll pay $3,000. The big thing would be being around the clergy, for I’ll be in the middle of my St Paul novel, and incidentally St Paul, where we can’t locate, is only six hours from Milwaukee on good trains. Not being close enough to my material would be the trouble with Bennington — and I expect I’d have to put in a full schedule there too — and North Carolina … but again please thank Jarrell.

About this summer, now that is something I look forward to. I am thinking of Ireland; perhaps I’ll go in May so as to get back in time for Marquette. How can I afford it? I can’t even with this break I got last week. I rec’d one of those American Arts and Letters things that you got last year; through K. A. Porter, I know for sure, and perhaps through you, for all I know. If so, thanks. It is supposed to be a secret till they announce it officially, I’m told, so please keep it to yourself; I told Buck, but nobody else (I felt I had to tell Buck: I know he worries I’ll try to knock them down for more advance money). […]

Well, it’s bock beer time here, the best time of the year, simply because of that. They could close up the place if it weren’t for that. If I go to Ireland in May, I’ll meet the two friends who may also go, in Ireland: one is a priest, the other an unfrocked seminarian,16 both of whom are in my novel. It would be good if you could be along. Your kind of fun. Both big men over 200 lbs, inclined to cigars and thirst. You see I am trying to interest you, but I know you can’t be in Ireland and Washington at once, or can you? […]

Sorry you’ve had so much to do; it is a little hard to imagine … do you get things done? I’ll say a prayer for your father. I am partial to fathers and mothers when they get old. One of the good things about Champ; he loved his mother, didn’t care what it looked like in the eyes of the analysts at Yaddo. […]

Jim

ROBERT LOWELL

Avon, Minnesota

April 5, 1948

Dear Cal,

Late Thursday night, heavy with bock, Betty in town with her folks, my good friends and bad company gone lurching off to their homes and rectories, and I want to tell you, first opportunity I’ve had, I am a Guggenheim fellow. Got the good word Saturday last and want to thank you now for the backing up you gave me. I might have written sooner, but I went to Mpls — St Paul to decide what I ought to do. Finally decided I’m not going to teach, am going to use this year right. Not that I couldn’t write and teach if it meant only six hours a week, but I’ll go better this way, and I need all the time I can plus the best breaks to get this book in hand. […]

We might get a place in St Paul for six weeks. That will enable us to explore the possibilities for a permanent place. Maybe we’ll get a place big enough to hold you and Champ and Buck and all your mallets and balls and bottles. Ireland looks dimmer now, too much money, too much trouble with boats, etc. I think I can get a passport. I found out in Chicago that I got amnesty, but I never heard from the gov’t; it was in the paper there around Christmas.

All for now. My regards to Mr Ransom if he’s there. How did Ezra and Randall fare together? Don’t know Randall, of course, but think it might have been good to see. Guess it would be good to see anybody with a few opinions of his own having an afternoon with Pound. Sorry about the Maine mess, postponement, etc.17 It seems a funny, public business for you to be mixed up in, but you can’t have everything, all that peace and quiet and singleness without paying somehow.