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

6 Garrelts and Keefe.

7 Joseph F. Busch (1866–1953), bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud, 1915–1953.

8 Mother of Peter Bartholome, now bishop of the Diocese of St. Cloud.

14. A place too good to believe we live in

1 Eugene and Abigail McCarthy.

2 Ammon Hennacy (1893–1970), pacifist, member of the Catholic Worker movement, Christian anarchist.

3 Father Pacifique Roy, who prepared a retreat at St. John’s given by Father Hugo that Jim attended.

4 Father Emeric Lawrence, OSB.

5 Newman Club in Minneapolis.

6 Philip Hughes, SJ (1895–1967).

7 John Courtney Murray, SJ (1904–1967), moral and ecumenical theologian.

8 Leonard P. Cowley (1913–1973), pastor of St. Olaf’s and head of the Newman Club at that time.

15. I had a very fine time — laughing as I hadn’t in years

1 On the way from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia.

2 Roethke.

3 As in fact became the case.

16. There have been times, though not recently, when it has seemed to me that I might escape the doom of man

1 Both played baseball for the St. Paul Saints.

2 Walter Alston. Big year for the Dodgers, who finally won the World Series.

3 To spend Thanksgiving in Beardsley — as he preferred.

4 With Jim’s “Blue Island,” Accent (Autumn 1955).

5 Not until the next year: “Zeal,” Commonweal , February 10, 1956.

6 Garrelts.

7 Bridgeman’s ice cream.

8 The day after Thanksgiving.

9 A pooka, in the shape of a large rabbit, played a part in the movie Harvey (1950).

10 Had been in favor of birth control and eventually left the Church.

11 Railroad salvage store, much frequented by Jim.

12 In Accent (Autumn 1955).

13 The New Yorker , November 5, 1955.

14 Bishop Bartholome.

15 Father Robert Hovda and Father Henry Fehrenbacher, liberal priests, associated with the Catholic Worker movement and liturgical reform.

16 Orville Freeman (1918–2003).

17 Whether the game — so popular in Catholic parishes as a way of levying money — should be illegal under the antigambling laws.

18 Thomas d’Esterre Roberts, SJ, Black Popes: Authority; Its Use and Abuse .

17. Four children now, Jack. And this year, the man said, bock beer is not available in this area

1 Published in Commonweal , February 10, 1956.

2 Walter Ong, SJ (1912–2003), professor of English, historian, and philosopher.

3 Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), French Thomist philosopher and social thinker.

4 Review of The Presence of Grace, Commonweal , March 30, 1956.

5 Catholic Worker .

6 Joke evocative of “the green banana” in Jim’s short story of that title. To give “the green banana,” meant roughly, in Jim’s and his friends’ parlance, to dismiss or reject, in this case linking it to the powerful Cardinal Giovanni Montini (who later became Pope Paul VI).

7 Chicago Sun-Times , April 1, 1956.

8 Huntington Hartford Foundation, a colony for artists and writers.

9 Food supplement.

10 Don Humphrey.

11 Wanderer , May 1956.

12 Northern League baseball team, New York Giants — affiliated Class C team at the time.

13 William Otterwell Ignatius Brady (1899–1961), appointed coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul, June 16, 1956.

14 He was invited to teach at Ann Arbor.

15 Merchant marine.

16 He remained (Billy) Cosgrove in Morte D’Urban .

17 Mud.

18 Bishop William Brady had been appointed coadjutor bishop to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on June 16, 1956. He succeeded Archbishop John Gregory Murray on his death in October 1956.

19 Wolverine: train from Michigan; LaSalle Street Station: in Chicago; IC: Illinois Central.

20 Jim paying back a loan.

21 Thomas Merton (1915–1968; Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance — that is, Trappist).

22 Father Caedmon (later Father Thomas Wahl), a Benedictine at St. John’s.

23 Dick Keefe.

24 Consumers Union.

25 Frank G. Clement, governor of Tennessee, gave the keynote speech.

26 “The Green Banana,” The New Yorker , November 10, 1956.

18. The Man Downstairs is entertaining tonight. Pansy and Dwight are quiet

1 Warner G. Rice, chairman of the English department.

2 A. L. Bader, head of the Hopwood Fellowship program.

3 Katherine Anne Porter.

4 Victor Gollancz.

5 Freda Bruce Lockhart.

6 As described in his novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold .

7 Suez Crisis.

8 Emergency session of the UN General Assembly on the Suez Crisis.

9 “The Green Banana,” The New Yorker , November 10, 1956.

10 X. J. “Joe” Kennedy and Robert E. Whelan Jr., both teaching fellows in the English department at the time.

11 University of Michigan football team.

12 Gordon Zahn.

13 Legion of Decency pledge administered on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: “I condemn all indecent and immoral motion pictures…” and so on.

14 Spellman.

15 X. J. Kennedy, “Epitaph for a Postal Clerk,” The New Yorker , December 8, 1956.

16 Arthur Wormhoudt, The Demon Lover: A Psychoanalytical Approach to Literature .

17 The fictional town near St. Clement’s Hill, the retreat house to which Father Urban was exiled.

18 Sore throat, earache.

19 “Some Footnotes on the Fiction of ’56,” Reporter , December 13, 1956.

20 Published in Reporter , January 10, 1957.

21 Gollancz.

22 Bellow’s Seize the Day .

23 Harvey Webster.

24 Jim was incensed by people who, thinking that “Farl” was a typo, changed his middle name to “Earl.”

25 Clyde Craine, head of the English department, University of Detroit.

26 Lanny Ross (1906–1988), American singer, actor, and songwriter.

19. This room is like a dirty bottle, but inside is vintage solitude

1 Elizabeth Hardwick, “The Classless Society,” The New Yorker , January 19, 1957.

2 LeBerthon.

3 Egan was assigned to St. Peter’s Church, Mendota.

4 Del Flanagan lost to Gil Turner at Midway Stadium, St. Paul, July 25, 1957.

20. Scabrous Georgian, noble views of the sea, turf in the fireplaces

1 Christian Family Movement.

2 Drawing of members of the Movement.

3 “Look How the Fish Live,” Reporter , October 1957.

4 Eugene and Abigail McCarthy.

5 Roethke had had a bout of madness but recovered quickly.

6 Edmund Wilson.

7 Cheap paperbacks designed to promote literature and rational thinking, especially in working people.

8 William Bedell Stanford (1910–1984), professor of classics, Trinity College.

9 Ó Faoláins.

10 “A Couple of Nights Before Christmas,” The New Yorker , December 21, 1957.

21. The office is in Dublin, on Westland Row

1 John Charles McQuaid.

2 See Jim to Egan, February 26, 1958.

3 Father Edward Ramacher (1917–2007), a tireless booster and promoter who mounted any number of celebrations and shows in partnership with the business community in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

22. About Don, I haven’t been the same since I read your letter

1 Buckminster Fuller.

2 Father Patrick Peyton (1909–1992), who led the Family Rosary Crusade: “The family that prays together, stays together.” (It later emerged that the crusade in Latin America was funded by the CIA.)

3 The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montogomery by Viscount Montogomery of Alamein (1958).

4 Father Egan.

5 The main character in Erskine Caldwell’s Tabacco Road .

6 McCarthy beat the incumbent Edward Thye for a seat in the U.S. Senate.