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

How they going?

I hear conflicting reports. That Del will meet Martinez on St Patrick’s Day, and since Vince is so heavy, Del will not have to train down (and so, it follows, will not have to drink so much water); but this morning Sid Hartman, that ace reporter, reports Del and Vince will never meet because Del isn’t ready.3

Joe Dever writes that Hollywood is nibbling on his last. Some talk of Crosby, Sinatra, and Dean Martin (now crooner, late of Martin and Lewis) all wanting priest parts. How about you?

Jim

Journal, March 24, 1959

Opened the window for a little air — and a few minutes later I saw the ladybug going up the windowpane. Hello again.

Art and Money returned from Florida at the end of March. Although they never complained or showed resentment about sharing their house with seven Powerses, the couple did not understand Jim and Betty’s insistence that they would not even consider a rambler, most especially one in a new development. Jim found the living situation at the Wahls’ increasingly intolerable. He accepted an invitation to a writers’ conference at Grinnell College in Iowa and planned to stay briefly with Egan on the way there or back.

HARVEY EGAN

North River Road

April 1 (ha ha), 1959

Dear Fr Egan,

Yours rec’d and glad that you were able to shuffle the cards so as to make space for me on your tight schedule. I sometimes wonder if Pope John knows what our American pastors are going through (and I’d be interested in his reaction). If I am ever to receive recognition at the Vatican, now is the time. Well, no, I didn’t realize that Fr Bandas was succeeding to Msgr Knox’s seat at the Round Table.4 Do these things just happen, or is this the divine humor? […]

Betty exclaimed during the course of changing diapers, getting milk for the baby, trying to quiet boys, etc.: “Suicide would be better than this. No, I shouldn’t say that.” But I’m afraid that’s about it. How’s it with youse?

Jim

ROBERT LOWELL AND ELIZABETH HARDWICK

c/o A. Wahl

North River Road

St Cloud, Minnesota

April 13, 1959

Dear Cal and Elizabeth,

On returning to this, the Granite City, yesterday, I found a summons from what may be one of your publishers, to meet you people in New York toward the end of April. Nothing was said beyond that, but I take it that you have a book coming out; Betty says that you are on your way to England, remembers something to that effect in one of your letters. If the former is true, there’s nothing I can do for you. But if the latter is true, keep an eye out for a place for me, my wife, and five children. […]

I am just back from Grinnell College, where Howard Nemerov and I were visitors for the writers’ conference. I must say I liked him very much. He is like you in conversation — a kindly, murderous approach. I’m sorry I can’t make it to New York in April, but you tell them how it is with me. I imagine you’ve been as happy as I have to see that Ted Roethke is finally being recognized. I am hoping they don’t make him wait too long for the Nobel Prize.

Best to youse.

Jim

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

c/o A. Wahl

North River Road

St Cloud, Minnesota

April 21, 1959

Dear Katherine Anne,

As for housing, I’m afraid our luck is no better than yours, and here we are four months later (than when I last wrote) and still where we were, with Betty’s father and mother, who have had three months in Florida in the meantime. The one house I could imagine us living in was rejected by Betty’s father, who, of course, has the money with which we were going to operate; too big, taxes too high, he said, and he’s right, but I fear that means we won’t find a place. We are not going to move into a three-bedroom rambler and fix up the basement (one of his suggestions). There is little direct communication between us and him. Betty has gone on for years without intimidating him — he is a builder of large buildings — by her different outlook on life. To me it seems odd, for my parents knew from about the time I got out of high school that I was not going to follow in their steps, i.e., make earning a living my primary concern. […]

The atmosphere is clear of trouble. That is the really remarkable thing, that the two of them can stand to have us and our five children around. I know I, in their position, couldn’t go it at all. Meanwhile, we sleep in fear of the baby’s waking in the night and get through the meals sometimes with hardly a mumblin’ word — and I am in the worst spot I’ve been in yet, which is saying something. We run ads for lake cottages; we write letters to people who have suitable ones — the majority of cottages in these parts aren’t fit for man or beast. You have to be from Chicago to believe you’re experiencing the best that nature can provide. As a resort area, it is not of the first class or even of the second. And still we can’t find a place to rent for the summer. What we’ll do in September, I don’t know. The thought frightens me, but I think we may go abroad again. I have all summer to pan the necessary gold. […]

All best.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

O’er Walgreen’s

Suite No. 7

St Cloud

April 24, 1959

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] I walked around St Paul that morning I left you, and I kept getting the feeling that the city had been bombed. St Paul Stationery now looks like one of the Horder office supply stores in Chicago. The public library has been all switched around inside so that the contents no longer match the words carved in stone over the various doors. Field, Schlick appeared about the same. But my opinion is that the same rats who are gnawing down the good old buildings here — the Highway Department leads the pack — are at work in St Paul. It didn’t seem much like home to me. I did not go up around the cathedral, fearing perhaps I’d find a cloverleaf in its place.

Now, as you know, I have considered from time to time the title Morte D’Urban for my Duesterhaus novel. Whether that will be it, I don’t know, but in any event I intend to play upon the idea of dying to this world, a phrase I seem to recall from the writings of several saints. […]

We are getting nowhere at all with our quest for a summer cottage. I keep thinking that anyone else of my eminence would know somebody who would say, “Oh, go use our house in Maine. We didn’t intend to open it at all this year.” I peer into the eyes of each passerby, but not a one stops and says anything like that to me.

[…] Jim

Journal, April 25, 1959

Yesterday call from Ken McCormick saying there was a nibble for “Defection of a Favorite” for television, which could mean as much as $2,000 to me … Now what happens — nothing, I suppose. In any case I suppose the money would be applied on my debt. But it was, for a while, before I thought of that , pleasant to think that I had passage money coming in from out of nowhere.

Journal, May 4, 1959

A hard weekend for Betty and me — absolutely nothing accomplished, and the morning the worst ever so far as the children are concerned. No mail for days. No word from Ken as to that TV sale. I must bear down — as never before.

HARVEY EGAN

Suite 7

May 4, 1959

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] I was sure when I read that Del had spent the night before the fight5 chatting with a few close friends that he’d be waterlogged again, but no. It must be as some of the scribes say, if we could just see into Del’s mind, we’d know what to expect. Anyway, more power to him!

These are ulcerous days around the ranch, with one chance after another fizzling out on us: to get out from under, that is. The only possible house (the one I mentioned to you) was sold last week, and that, we’ve decided, is it so far as St Cloud is concerned.