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

Jim

BETTY POWERS

150 Summit Avenue

November 15, 1948

Dear Betty,

[…] A note from Buck saying something called Thinker’s Digest wants to run excerpts from my stories, at their leisure, I guess, they want blanket permission and say they never pay for anything because they publicize books so well: need I tell you it’s a Catholic outfit? […] And now, once more, much love.

Jim

BETTY POWERS

150 Summit Avenue

November 22, 1948

Dear Betty,

[…] Feel pretty good today. I ate the last of the strawberry preserves and am into the cherry now, which isn’t so good. We had an interesting trip back,8 no dangerous accidents, or even narrow escapes, eating something at Elk River. Fr G. was on the famished side. I guess he’d hoped for a little something among our rural friends. […]

I picked up a yesterday paper from the basket by the elevator. I enjoy it more that way, I find, with no investment in it, just the loss of time. I did up the dishes and cleaned the ashtrays before I left yesterday, so the house is in good shape. You looked very sweet and pretty yesterday, and I was glad you are my wife. I know I repeat myself, but do try to anticipate the time, so I can be there in time. I realize too how weary you must get of someone asking you when you’re going to have the baby, but I can’t get it out of my head that you should know more about it than you do, or could know. […]

Much love,

Jim

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

St Cloud, Minnesota

November 29, 1948

Dear Katherine Anne,

[…] I am here in St Cloud, known rightly as Granite City, awaiting the birth of another baby. I hope it doesn’t come as the blow to you as it did to us (I might lift that line for my headstone, containing as it does much of my “thought” and more of my “style”). Betty is 18 days late in having this baby, and the strain is beginning to tell. We are set down here with her family, who are filled with all the expectation families seem to have at such a time; but even they, at this late date, find their joy a heavy thing. It is like a party that everyone’s tired of but won’t leave. And the truth about me is that I just don’t qualify as the ideal husband. The doctor with a big, knowing smile predicts a big bouncing boy, and I’m damned if he has my number there. Betty and I decided that having children is not the same thing for a writer. There is no room in our economy, in the largest sense; the old rowboat leaks already. […]

Your Katherine Anne here is a flourishing fatty. She has one flaw, an eye that doesn’t focus quite right, and one virtue that I take to be art: she dances to music, though she doesn’t yet walk.

Very best,

Jim

Mary Farl Powers was born on November 29, 1948. As they were to do in the case of all the babies, Betty’s parents paid the hospital bill.

BETTY POWERS

150 Summit Avenue

December 4, 1948

Dear Betty,

[…] I did a job on the house yesterday, cleaning. I scrubbed the bathroom with my own little hands, including the toilet bowl, and mopped the floor in here, including the hall, and including behind the davenport, where it was about an inch deep, the dust. I washed the windows on the inside, swept the kitchen, and thought how nice it would be if I could vacuum this rug, but I can’t take ours seriously, our vacuum cleaner. I must study it. […]

Do you need money? I don’t suppose you’d have enough sense (I mean this lovingly) to make your hospital check out big enough to get some. Tell me. Much love. Katherine Anne gave me some nice kisses when I left the other day.

Jim

BETTY POWERS

150 Summit Avenue

December 11, 1948

Dear Betty,

Saturday afternoon. Fr G. has been here for lunch, so to speak, beer, swiss cheese, pepperoni (a new food I’ve found, kind of bologna), and Black Forest bread. […] I won’t deny I’ve had a little too much beer, as you can tell from this typing, but it is wearing off. […]

I went to the Alvin9 last night. An old comedian from Chicago days, pretty good, but the girls weren’t much. I meant to speak to the manager, but didn’t. Do you think A History of Burlesque would go? Thomas More Bookshop Selection. I’m considering it. All for now. Much love. I vacuumed the rug yesterday. Very tough going, but I find the nozzle is good for sucking the dust out of corners, furniture, and picture frames.

Jim

I’m going to get some pepperoni for Ezra Pound. It will make a nice gift for him, something to go with the crackers.

Jim went to Chicago, to his parents’, for Christmas. His sister, Charlotte, was also there with her first child, Dennis, a toddler. Betty, Katherine, and Mary stayed in St. Cloud with Betty’s parents.

BETTY POWERS

Chicago

1948

J. F. Powers, His Christmas Letter

Dear Betty,

Here it is Christmas 1948, and another year has gone by. I am sitting here in my steamer robes writing to you, thinking of the years gone by, the years to come, thinking of our heritage of freedom, of the Minnesota centenary, of rural life, of rural fun, of Life …

Now, the truth is I have not heard from you for three days. Maybe I should have called you last night, or today, and maybe I will (there is some agitation here that I should), but I remember how unsatisfactory our phone calls have always been, and I hold back (there is also the matter of the cost, and I don’t know you well enough yet to determine whether you’d be happier to have me call or not to call: mystery of matrimony, inscrutability of woman). Anyway, as you can tell, I am irritated that I haven’t heard from you, but I realize you are probably very busy with our offspring, that and the confusion of the holidays, the dinner at your house today, or is it the Strobels’ on Christmas? I do hope you are not getting nervous and run-down, and I fear you are.

My one big plan now, aside from the novel, which is always with me, is to get a big house and someone to help you, and I don’t know how I can do it. I want to buy a house on Summit, big enough for my mother and dad to live upstairs or somewhere, and I fear you are not with me in this. It is the saddest thing in my life, however, to see my mother worked the way she is here, to say nothing of my father. I think, is it too much to ask of you, and really, all things considered, I think not. I think it would be good for you; I know it would be good for me. I think my mother might become the friend you’ve never had (and as I say that, I feel you draw away), but I believe that, Betty. With two other women I might have married, I know it would have worked out, and you are better than either one of them; no comparison, otherwise. However, I am not trying to be cunning about this, it is the simple truth, and I wish I could believe that you might see it. In any event, I feel I must work much, much harder, and I fully intend to, and I do not kid myself about schedules, etc., not since the one I made out before I married you, the one that used to hang on the wall. There is a little too much activity here (the child) for me to collect my thoughts very well, but you have the fragments.

I want to tell you, too (what I feel is unnecessary), that I love you very much, that I wish I might make your life easier, and that gets back to the house and help again. Will you try to go along with me on this? I almost say, If you love me … but that would be wrong; I know you love me. Perhaps you should listen to me in a few things, though, such as you did in having your hair cut, and they will be better for you than you can imagine. You are inclined to think along traditional lines; I mean, if we haven’t done things, it is a good reason not to do them; but we must make a few swift surgical moves and departures: after all that is how we got married in the first place, and to my mind that is the best way; at least it is good to think that we fell in love all at once and were not cautious then and we haven’t been, except at intervals, since then. We have won a lot that way; we have lost too; but I think I’d rather have what we’ve won … and I know exactly what I mean, though you might think me vague. […]