by J.F. Powers
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 30, 1946
Dear Betty,
Wednesday. Your letter came, and I have read it. I trust you rec’d my letter of yesterday today. I did not feel like writing Monday, and that is why you didn’t get one yesterday. A card from Sr Mariella in which she tells me it is not necessary to come and see her as you would have told me everything she had in mind, which of course you have, and she concludes, however, with the thought that one must live one’s own life and it is my neck if I wish to risk it. In a little while I’ll be eating with Fr Egan. I called him a while ago and told him I was snowed under again (the last time I saw him, I was young and gay with the good news), and he said he’d pay me $80 to clean his pipes before he’d counsel sticking with the system. I do not plan to keep the hospital job if I can get anything else. If I can’t, I’ll try to get it down to five hours a day, but they won’t like it, and of course I’ll have to take less money, all of which seems like a damned nuisance to me. But, let it be clear so your heart can be at rest, I plan to get something, and I will keep the apartment, I am not going to do anything drastic, etc. Enough of that. I guess we are both tired of it. […]
It is snowing. I am not going on the retreat this weekend. I will need what money I have, I imagine, if my brother comes. Anyway, I am in no mood for it. As a matter of fact, I am not in the mood for anything good. I hope you didn’t dislike what I said in my letter about Fandel’s and so on. You must try to understand, Betty, that I have been through the old bookstore mill and it has left its mark on me. And about continuing work—for twenty-seven months, in jail, out of jail, carrying bedpans, sewing up corpses, sweating a lake of sweat with the sterilizer, and hauling a mountain of ice, all this time I have been looking forward to freedom. Or what I thought was freedom. Anyway, it is not easy, especially when you are as short on virtue as I am and long-suffering, to accept someone’s gentle counsel, even when you love that someone and perhaps recognize some truth in what she says, to continue the same old grind. I am lazy too. I hate regular hours. I like to walk when I want to. Sleep when I want to. Listen to music. I will go pretty far to get in a position to do these things. I love you, you know, and I’ll try to find some way.
Love,
Jim
Jim and Betty’s plans for the future included leaving St. Paul in September and renting or buying (with the assistance of others) a farm near St. John’s. This would take them away from the world of getters and spenders and bring them into the company of such friends in the Movement as Emerson Hynes and Don Humphrey. One possible farm would have made them neighbors of some committed Detachers—whose views Betty loathed.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
January 31, 1946
Dear Betty,
I just got up. It’s hotter than hell in the apartment. I have the windows open. But no cool air comes in. Your letter, one from my mother, one from Fr Garrelts. About the things in your letter. It will be a sad day old JF writes a letter to the abbot2 about a job. As any old pitchman will tell you … never give a sucker an even break. That is what asking for a job is like … anywhere and especially at St John’s. I have seen the abbot operate. He is a good man, but his last name is Deutsch, and if he’s like a lot of other Germans, and I think he is, he expects to get to heaven for not having made any impractical moves during his stay on earth. I have often wondered why they didn’t try to prove, somewhere along the line, that Jesus Christ received a gold watch for 33 years of service. I think, in short, you had better worry about your novel and stop thinking about me and a job. I love you for your interest. On the other hand you are quite young and innocent.
Present plans call for me to visit Stearns County on the 10th, all right, with Fr Egan. Our special end will be to see the Koppy farm.3 Whenever you find out about it, or your father does, just write the details quick. You don’t have to phone.
I see, on rereading your letter, that it was Mariella’s idea to write to the abbot. Please tell her to say the rosary 1,000 times for my special intention. Yes, I found the missal. Who would steal it? We had a good talk last night, Fr Egan and I, and I told him all about everybody’s plans. He had the phrase for the Fandel’s deal. “Fandel’s … Brentano’s,” he said. “Your life is a game of Monopoly. Pay the bank and go back to the start.” I think that takes care of that, except to say I’d have been ashamed to have you working there in the morning, as you suggested. I have always found these man-and-wife, work-and-win, and don’t-forget-to-say-thank-you-to-the-customer combinations very depressing. All right, all right, that’s enough talk about jobs. Please don’t mention them anymore and I won’t. The important things are: I love you; I wish you were here; I wish I were there; I wish we were both somewhere. […]
Love,
Jim
Betty Wahl to Sister Mariella Gable, ca. February 1, 1946
This is to stop you worrying about a number of things. In the first place, the farm was unfit for human occupation, so we have lost that future connection with the Detachers … Anyway, there is a 10-acre plot 2½ miles from St. Ben’s and ½ mile from the St. John’s gate … There, surrounded by Benedictines, and with Emerson only ½ mile off through the woods, all seeds of heresy ought to fall away effortlessly. Jim is only slightly touched by the Detachers. His writing is considerably more influenced by it than his life is. He is much more of an epicurean than a Detacher. He is a sucker for the viewpoint of the Detacher as far as making destructive comments goes …
I agree that Jim needs a conversion, to the positive side of the Church. Dante, Giotto, Gregorian chant, Augustine (used sparingly), Chesterton (large doses, for optimism), Benedictinism,… and the Hynes family. (Dennis gets butter and honey, all over the bread, and down the sides a little.) The plan is still indefinite. He and Father Egan are coming up Monday, but with Father E. listening to every word, I probably can’t do much then, unless I want to convert him too.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
February 1, 1946
My dear Betty,
I love you. Your letter of today was very good. The best I’ve had in some time. There were two things I especially liked, that we could live on $40 a month (whether true or not, I liked it) and that we could put shutters up when we go to Ireland. Because we are going to Ireland sooner or later, if only for a month, and I would prefer to go with you willingly. I went over to see Fr Egan immediately. He agrees that the farm we had in mind is out if it’s the way you say it is. […] Now about the other two spots. I wish you would draw a map of them. […] You say nothing about how much you would expect would be wanted. If they are together and could be bought as a unit, Fr Egan would be interested and would have some cash. […] I am interested. It would seem you have the well-known business sense. Now try to answer all these questions like a good girl.
A good letter from Sr Eugene Marie today with many memories of Fr Kelly. My story about them, I think, will be the best thing I’ve done. It will be as long as Fr Burner, I believe. I guess that’s all I have to say tonight. It’s seven-thirty Friday evening, February 1, 1946, the year I married my wife, Elizabeth Alice. […]
I loves youse.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
February 5, 1946
Dear Betty,
[…] I am going to sign with Doubleday for two books, the stories and a novel. I will get a “small” advance on the stories and monthly payments on the novel. That is not so bad, is it? […]
I love you.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
February 6, 1946
Dear Betty,
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. […]
I was talking with Mother St Ignatius the other day about her nephew and Evie, having mentioned that I was interested in a five-hour night and that I was marrying a St Cloud author (you). Then we talked about a conversion, or rather reconversion, she
made with one of the boys working at the hospital, a colleague of mine. He turned Jehovah’s Witness during the war, only, as Ig explained, it was a woman that led him astray. She evidently believes most bad things happen through the offices of women. I agreed with her. I said, however, that you were different and very spiritual and that we didn’t even expect to have carnal intercourse as it’s so carnal we think and mostly live by the spirit. She said that was fine and that she didn’t have time for much c.i. herself. I refer to her as Ig because Fr Kelly used to do so (he is my source and justification).
Well, Keefe4 is in Robbinsdale today. He and Fr Garrelts were erstwhile friends and enemies. He is from Quincy too. We all played on the Quincy College Academy teams—the Little Hawks we were called. That is because the college was the Hawks proper, but we were bigger than the Hawks, us Little Hawks. So you are marrying a Little Hawk, please tell everybody. You must send me your old girdle, now that you have a new one. I will venerate it as a first-class relic. […] Now I must end this. I love you, Betty, and expect to love you more in a couple of weeks. Right now I have 18 or 19 projects knocking around in my head. Send me a kiss the next time. You have never done that. I don’t just want an x either.
Jim
CHARLES SHATTUCK
February 1946
Dear Chuck,
The lid is off on the parole business. I am free to starve again. The state is losing its memory. I am shedding my number and assuming a name again. I expect to be in Chicago next week, where good government combines with good living, and it may be that I will make a pilgrimage to Urbana, my literary birthplace. […]
I am coming back to St Paul about the 21st and am going to finish some stories. Just write. I have already made arrangements to quit the job, perhaps effective tomorrow night or at the latest Saturday.
Naturally, I feel pretty good about all this. […]
Pax,
Jim
Betty Wahl to Sister Mariella Gable, February 14, 1946
I was, of course, shocked when I heard that he had quit his job. After I said no once, he just didn’t mention it again. Perhaps it is best that he did. We will get this period over before we get married. It will give him about three months’ time. If he really can work, and can work in big enough quantities to bring in about 80 dollars a month, there is no point in his going back to work. If he fails, he agrees to get a job of some kind. There is no danger of starving immediately. Father Egan is being his patron. (I don’t know if he told you, or even if he wants you to know, but you should know.) I’m not too afraid of being indebted to F. Egan, because we spent (Jim and I, I mean) about three hours thoroughly hashing out all the questions about the Detachers and I am satisfied.
5
I am like Daniel Boone cutting my way through that bourgeois wilderness
February 14, 1946–April 26, 1946
April 22, 1946: (left to right) Zella, Art, Money, John Haskins, Pat Wahl, Betty, Jim, Jim
After quitting his job at the hospital, Jim paid a week’s visit to his parents in Chicago. Living with them were Michael, the dog, Jim’s grandmother Tilda, and his brother, Dick, who was something of a rogue at the time.
BETTY WAHL
4453 North Paulina Street, Chicago, the I Will City
St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1946
Dear Valentine,
I am at home, sitting in our living room. It is a wonderful room, very dear to me, scene of many a long night and early morning of writing. My books are all here. The phonograph. My family. My dog, Michael, who is sitting in the window now watching the janitor shovel snow away from the Fourteenth Church of Christ Scientist. It snowed like hell for the last miles into Chicago and must have been going here quite a while. I […] sat in the smoker for most of trip as the windows open better to the country. Very memory provoking, looking at the Wisconsin hills, the frozen streams, the farmhouses, with each it seemed sporting a dog who would break into a run when we went by, but at a great distance so that it was like an old print. I wish that you had been with me, except that you would have been tired. I read a paper edition of The Grapes of Wrath. And smoked until the pipe got bad-tasting. A letter from Shattuck waiting for me. He expects to see the crime wave rise now that I am free. […] My folks were disappointed that you didn’t come. I have promised you to them now. So keep that in your head. And this in your heart: I love you.
Your
Jim
CHARLES SHATTUCK
4453 North Paulina Street, Chicago
February 14, 1946
Dear Chuck,
I’m in Chicago now and have your note. Evidently, you are looking for the new Bluebeard in me. I think I’ll disappoint you. I am a simple citizen only, made in the image and likeness of Harry Truman, which is plenty for me, and if you weren’t one of them stuck up professors, it would be plenty for you. You may count on me Monday next. I’ll take the 9:05 a.m. out of Chicago. It will be a nice alibi as, if everything works out right, my draft board will perish mysteriously that afternoon. I may bring George Barnett with me. He is returning to Chicago to eke out. He has been in New York doing basal metabolism. He wants to outlaw the atomic bomb. I know a priest who wants to popularize it; he says look what small arms did for Ireland. Pax. How is Falstaff these days?
Jim
BETTY WAHL
4453 North Paulina Street, Chicago
February 20, 1946
Dear Betty,
Here I am still in Chicago. Wednesday afternoon. I am leaving either tonight or tomorrow. I am staying by special request of my folks. I am anxious to be back in St Paul, to read letters I expect to find there from you and to begin writing. Sunday night—to give you an account of my stewardship—I met Nelson Algren, whose two novels I like very much but which are probably too rough for someone as nice as you. Then Monday morning I went to Urbana and stayed with the Shattucks. That meant a lot of beer, more beer than good conversation, as a matter of fact. Some of the erstwhile editors of Accent, back from the wars, came over, and I met them for the first time—the Carrs and Hills. […] I am loving you.
Your
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
February 25, 1946
Dear Betty,
Monday, 4:30 in the afternoon, Fr Garrelts here for lunch and now out for a walk with Fr Egan. Fr Egan brings bad tidings about Fr Burner.1 It seems St Paul and Minneapolis are boiling on account of it. I can’t determine why exactly. Fr Egan says it doesn’t do any good and probably does a lot of harm. He holds it isn’t a purely parochial reaction, but I am still inclined to think that is what it is, nothing else coming to light on it. Newsstands are asked for Accent. Copies are at a premium. I should be happy about it, I suppose, but I’m not. It will blow over, I suppose. […]
When are you coming to see me? When am I coming to see you? I won’t feel like it until I turn out a couple of these stories. I think that’s all for now. I love you of course. Do not get upset about the wedding. I seem to detect the beginnings of hysteria already. Stop trying to finish your book on a weekend. No good comes of that.
I love you.
Jim
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
February 26, 1946
Dearest Betty,
Tuesday morning before I get into the day’s work. Did I tell you, I think not, that the barber suspected you when I told him the other day that I wanted it left rather long? He took special pains after that, he said, as he was cutting it for two people now. I thought at the time, what will I ever do in Stearns County for haircuts? You will have to learn how to cut my hair. I would not trust one of the agrarians (farmers) with it, not that I am particularly vainglorious. […]
The maid says the beer bottles must go and she hopes I won’t be mad at her for telling me, like they got downstairs (Dr Ruona). The exterminator man says it’s the bottles that draw cockroaches. I have a small fortune in bottles, beer and milk, which I intend to expend for a wedding gift fo
r you. Well, today you have moved the date up to the 22nd of April. Why don’t you concentrate a little harder and make it the day after tomorrow? Then we can both settle down to our work, you calm in the knowledge that I married you for your literacy virtues and business sense, me calm in the knowledge that I married a “cold” woman who thought a husband was something every growing girl ought to have. […]
I must write Harry Sylvester and tell him I am now a public enemy myself. I am referring to the clerical forces now allied against me on account of Father Burner. I suppose it’s a healthy sign. Joyce had the same trouble in Dublin with his stories. Fortunately, I don’t think they can touch me. I am very glad that Sr Mariella approved of the Doubleday deal, but wonder what she means when she says that’s the only way I’d ever be able to make it, as though it were not all right that way. As for living off money I haven’t earned, that’s silly. When I write the stories, it’s earned then and there, and when they’re published is something else. Someday I’ll gather all you Teutons into a single classroom and lecture you a little on True Economics, a course I’m famous for. […]
I love you, Betty.
Jim
Jim’s aunt Margaret came from Chicago to stay with him for a few days.
BETTY WAHL
150 Summit Avenue
March 9, 1946
Dearest Betty,
[…] My Aunt Mgt has gone to a morning movie downtown—Leave Her to Heaven—oh, God! I might have gone to see The Lost Weekend with her, but oh no … she could see enough drunks in the streets without going to a movie about one. So it is. How right Hollywood and the Ladies’ Home Journal and the rest of them all are. They aren’t negative, not them. I think I’ll be negative to the day I die, I think, when I sound someone like Aunt Mgt on things. What a damn terrible thing this system has done in the years to people. Everybody she ever knew “had a good position” with Armour, with the Pullman Company, with Field’s, with National Biscuit, or was “in business for himself” with a dandy line of mops and ironing boards. And they all, every damn last one of them, had—“nice homes.”
