by J.F. Powers
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Albuquerque
Saturday, January 10, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Very sorry to hear about Fr Nolan, but found his last words rewarding. I like that tone—see you in heaven. Now and then, from something like that, I get the idea that Catholics really do believe what they hold. It is an idea, that idea of death, that I’d like to see stressed more. As my friends and parents grow older, I think more along those lines; have to, I guess, not able to accept the tragedy it would be if it ended here as it does, this life. […]
Juarez, I’m told, has been cleaned up, not what it used to be when I was a boy; much private enterprise then, every girl her hut and fire; now all spick-and-span, five houses run by a syndicate.
Don Humphrey threw a party for us in St Cloud, with food and drink; not the customary coffee and cake; and I guess he hopes I’ll settle there. Will I? Truth to tell, I don’t know what I’m doing.
My mother has dug out a pair of Indian moccasins I made as a boy, and they lie here at my feet—is there a clue in them, to the future? You know, I believe, that my desire at one time was to be an Indian, a member of the Blackfoot tribe. Then it was baseball, a member of the Brooklyn Robins (under Robbie, remember?). Then it was leader of a dance band; I had the baton and often directed, standing before the radio. Then. Then. Until now. Ireland again, yes, but I’m afraid you can’t go home again—which probably won’t keep me from trying, if I can ever work it out, the financial side, I mean. In Ireland, I am an American. Here, I’m nothing. And you, Father?
Pax,
Jim
The moccasins, I notice, point NNE.
BETTY POWERS
Albuquerque
Your birthday, January 16, 1953
Dear Betty,
[…] Downtown today with my mother. She got the girls some bracelets; I got them little cross necklaces the other day. I’m sorry to hear things are so bad there, your father not feeling well, etc. I hope the girls (and you) don’t make it worse. I’ve been thinking a lot about you; often, in detail. It’s a sad state of affairs when a man’s most carnal thoughts are all about his wife. See that you are worthy of them. Kiss the girls for me. Don’t upset your life too much—to come to Mpls; I’ll understand if you aren’t there.
Much love,
Jim
Jim returned to Minnesota, taking up residence again with his family, still living up the river at Betty’s parents’ house. The Wahls left for Florida, intending to return north in April.
ROBERT LOWELL
c/o A. Wahl
North River Road, Route 2
St Cloud, Minnesota
February 5, 1953
Dear Cal,
Glad to hear from you, after so long. […] I went to Ted Roethke’s reading and afterward saw Ted in a saloon. I was with Buck Moon. It was a little like old times—except that I wasn’t in condition and suffered too much the next day and day after. Ted looks pretty good. I thought he’d have gone downhill (physically, I mean), but I was wrong. Buck is working at Collier’s, as a fiction editor. Ted is on a Ford. He wavered on street corners, clutching at his coat collar, and said he didn’t know whether he should go to Florida or Saginaw. I advised him on his delivery, suggesting that he not try to be mindful of the audience, that he forget his tendency to seem lovable, which just doesn’t become him.
We arrived back from Ireland in December. […] I managed to work more than I have in years. I enjoyed the papers, the fireplace, the sea, the theatre in Dublin, and racing. Now we’re supposed to be looking for a house. There aren’t any for us. You’re lucky to come from New England. I think there must be houses there. I have to be a big success and build, to make out in this locality. I understand writers like Eliot and James better, why they left, I mean, but I don’t feel up to doing it myself, going whole hog, becoming a subject of the queen or a citizen in Ireland. In short, be thankful that you want to be somewhere that is also where you belong. My family (now in New Mexico) just moved around too much. […]
Our children are both anemic; as is Betty; but we are all happy together. Presently we’re living in Betty’s family house, on the Mississippi, while her folks are in Florida. […] Best to you both.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
March 27, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
I was wondering what ever happened to you, when your letter came today. Offhand, I’d go along with that doctor who says you’re only anemic. Guinness for you. A pint of plain is your only man. You’ve got good stuff in you, and though moderation is a good thing, you don’t want to go off the deep end. Myself, I have no need for stimulation, being numb to the world, but you, you’re different. So much for that.
Now for the things which really matter. I have made some flats—one of my favorite words now—and have planted ten varieties of tomatoes (seeds), some Savoy cabbage. That was a week ago. Well, already the little bastards are beginning to rear their little shoots, first the cabbage, today the first of the tomatoes—the Fargo Yellow Pear, I believe, not having time to refer to my master key. As I understand it, we’ll need some land pretty soon for these plants, if they continue to prosper. We can’t use Art’s, I think, because he’s a gardener in the local manner, gets his tomato plants from a greenhouse—John Baer, I believe they’re called—and sets them out. You’d be surprised how resentful people are (I think of Mary Humphrey, for whom all tomatoes are equal and John Baers are the most equal) when one approaches gardening with imagination. It all goes together, as Eric Gill said.
A man who reads The Saturday Evening Post will plant John Baer tomatoes. […] Betty says robins stop, look, and listen, as they do, for the voices of worms, which they can hear. Is that true? I don’t know what to believe nowadays.
Pax,
Jim
The Wahls returned from Florida, and with the prospect of a family Easter gathering before him Jim went, once more, to stay with Father Egan in Beardsley. He instructed Betty on the care of his beloved tomato seedlings. Alas, under the crowded conditions in which the family was living, the “crop” failed. “Rain. Rain. Rain,” Betty wrote to him. “About a dozen of the seedlings folded over one nice day. Others should be brought in for this cold weather, but nowhere to bring them except basement.”
BETTY POWERS
Beardsley
April 1953
Dear Betty,
Just a note. I felt bad about leaving you as I did—the hassle over tomatoes, I mean—and hope you didn’t brood over it. Since coming here, I’ve been having plenty of food and music and conversation. […] I don’t know when I’ll return, in a day or two or maybe next week. I mean to discuss that with Fr Egan but don’t, somehow. […] I hope you’re feeling all right, that the girls are well, that things aren’t too difficult for everybody. I also hope that something is happening about our future habitat but suppose that’s not to be, yet. Now I must close, having nothing else to say. […]
Much love,
Jim
Jim returned from Beardsley. Art Wahl told Betty he would contribute ten thousand dollars toward a house for the Powers family.
HARVEY EGAN
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
April 30, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Art has offered to put up cash to buy an old house here. But we’ve not found one we like or can afford; the former, particularly. There was one, five bedrooms, two and a half baths, but in poor condition, ready for burning, I think, some dark winter night. The real estate man was interesting, like my character Mac. Bow tie, mustache, chewing gum, smile, station wagon, and line. “Boy, when I see a cash customer, I move right in with him.” “That’s right. Tell the truth and you never have to remember what you said.” Lots of small talk that you would’ve loved, which I didn’t respond to properly, which caused him to ask presently: “You folks from around here
?” as if he seriously doubted it. Nice fellow, though, really on our side, and if there’s ever a black-market economy here, I mean to look him up for some square deals. Good idea for a fiction character, if I knew more about the realtor’s life. His driving around, as he does, looking at other people’s houses, some not for sale, and saying: “You like that one. I might get you that.” I think he will live, in the American grain. […]
And now Betty comes in with the mail and a book, a guide to recorded music, and I know you’re the only one who would send me that. Thanks very much. If I ever get my Magnavox out of storage, I’ll need it. I haven’t heard any music (excepting Guy Lombardo and the Ink Spots) since I left Beardsley, seat of my cultural life.
Best to Brother.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
May 7, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Everything very much the same here—nothing good in real estate coming our way. I vacillate between wishing I had the wings of an angel—one whose wings would know where to take him, however—and a large brick house in which to hide myself, with books, music, etc.
We watch the papers for new movies, and I rather think that’s what a lot of people are doing here. Something good comes here, and for days afterward you might hear Don, the Petterses, the Palmquists, the Powerses, adverting to it, having been there on opening night, as it were. It’s what you’ve got there in Beardsley, only not so you can see it so clearly. It is possible to divert the mind from time to time into thinking maybe things aren’t so bad. Work, I say, in my lucid moments, that is the only thing. […]
George and Dick6 were here for lunch—at the Modern Bar—one day two weeks or so ago. Dick is quite a bit larger than life. Had a pocketful of El Productos and dreams of more education for everyone who can afford to go to St Louis U. […]
Guerin on Native Dancer was bumped. Ireland, I find, has killed me for racing here. It’s just not it anymore. Rather ungrateful of me to say that after all racing has done for me here. It may be that I need a two-bob ticket to feel right about the whole thing, the depression keeps coming back and spoiling the outlook at the track. I just don’t know. Thanks again for all that research you did on Quebec. It doesn’t look good, economically, and my intuition is also against it.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
June 3, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] Potato bugs, armyworms (now being sprayed by a man in a truck), and so on here. You’d think with so much DDT being used, we’d have fewer harmful insects, wouldn’t you? (That is what is known as a leading question.)
Bp Busch’s funeral today, but Don and I decided not to brave the clergy, hordes of whom are here for it.7
Guess that makes Mom Bartholome top dog.8 Heard a good one about her lately. Seems she was at some big celebration or other, and feeling called to say something timely to her son (I guess it was not a speech, just something she felt compelled in the circumstances to say), she said: “Son, save your money.” […]
Best,
Jim
14
A place too good to believe we live in
October 5, 1953–April 14, 1954
James Ansbury Powers (Boz) and Jim, 1954
In September, Jim and Betty finally found a solution to their housing problem in the “red house,” the oldest house in St. Cloud. The arrangement was that Jim and Betty would act as caretakers in lieu of rent and also share residency for part of the year with the two women who owned the house. Writing to Egan, Jim said, “I know you and know you’ll not like the setup, that we don’t have the whole house; but that is where the facts of life come in: we don’t belong in a house like this, just as we didn’t belong in Ireland—both being beyond us, in this our time, in this our plight.”
Built in 1856 as an office and storerooms and expanded into the house it became in 1861, the place had served as a tea garden (Grandmother’s Tea Gardens) in the 1920s and 1930s. The grounds were set out with lilacs and other flowering bushes and shaded by oak, elm, maple, black walnut, and mulberry trees. Occupying half a block across the road from the Mississippi, it was, as Jim wrote to Katherine Anne Porter, a “nice beat-up old house … with probably the loveliest yard, all unkempt, in St. Cloud, crawling with railroad lilies and mosquitoes. The sensation, walking through it, is one of buoyancy.”
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
October 5, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letter rec’d this morning, the only piece of mail, which just shows you what life has come down to for me, and a Monday morning at that. Why, I remember the day when every mail brought invitations to write or speak (for nothing). Now I might as well be in Barry.
I write so soon because I want to tell you the good news. I was up on a ladder in a high wind mending a squirrel hole in the house—they bowl nuts in the attic about two in the morning—when a wire came from Ken McCormick of Doubleday saying I’d be getting $3,000 in the coming year from the Rockefeller Foundation. I’d applied, on his advice last winter, or spring, and had hoped to hear in July. I’d given up some time ago. Now, it would appear, we’ll be able to live another year, eat and everything. To think you used to talk against Standard Oil! Well, I’m telling you, but don’t tell anybody. I want to see how long society will cold-shoulder me. I refer to the fact that no one comes to see me, no one writes.
Naturally, I’ll take up the novel again, providing I can get rid of the hammer and saw I carry about with me, night and day, and wallpaper brush. Send me some of your old yellow slips: squirrel hole, hole under my workroom, hole in shed, hole in attic, wiring in cellar, furnace, pad for my room, rug for my room, Hamm’s, and so on.
[…] It is a run-down place but very beautiful in its way, and the grounds are the loveliest in St Cloud, I think. The owners, sisters of advanced age, both unmarried, name of Mitchell, Presbyterians, are descended from the original Yankee settlers; their father was author of the History of Stearns County and had a newspaper and holding company here. I like them, Ruth and Eleanor. They live in Mpls and St Paul, respectively; Hampshire Arms and Laurel Avenue. That’s about it. […]
Write. Come.
Jim
James Ansbury Powers was born on November 13, 1953. His name mutated from Bother Brown to Bozzer to Boz.
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
November 14, 1953
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I am alone here, Betty in the hospital. We had a boy yesterday morning (6:09 a.m.) and will call him James, I guess, making him the fourth one. The girls, who wanted another girl, are staying at Wahls. They consider boys selfish, “miners”—someone who grabs things and says, “That’s mine!” Hump says now I’m really in business, in the family-life sense, and I guess expects my life to become more of a shambles, but we’ll see. […]
Went to see Martin Luther, the movie, and found it interesting, but confirmed in my faith, which proves something, I guess. If you would shake my faith, let me see a movie made under Catholic auspices. When I saw Luther at home, with Mrs Luther rocking the cradle, sewing, and Dr Luther teaching nine-year-olds sitting all in a row, I saw that the appeal was primarily sentimental, and so I guess it must always be, here, in lieu of anything else, anything like theology. Letter this morning from the First Methodist Church, mimeographed, welcoming me to St Cloud, suggesting that I come around unless I have other affiliations—which is very often not the case. The curate is Japanese.
Les McCarthys1 (French) were here Wednesday afternoon. Word from them on the Sylvesters. Guess Rita is in a state asylum. Harry teaching in N. Carolina and divorced from her, in love with another. There’s comedy and tragedy for you. He never should’ve left the sport page, Gene McCarthy said, and that’s about it, I think. [�
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Now I must close, pick up some food for Betty to eat in the hospital. She says she’s never tasted any like it.
When are you coming to see us?
Jim
CHARLES SHATTUCK
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
November 30, 1953
Dear Chuck,
[…] We have found this house, a place too good to believe we live in, run-down as it is, owned by these elderly sisters who come for a few days now and then and are easy to take: I see they have left me the Saturday Review with KAP’s picture on it, knowing we named our Katherine Anne after her. And I got this grant, after giving up on it, having applied last spring and expected to hear in July, and got it in the nick of time, in October, with Betty about to have a baby, movers to pay (from Milwaukee, where our furniture was in storage), and though I didn’t know it until four days later—there were four days of perfect bliss—with a rejection from The New Yorker in store for me: another cat story, one I would’ve bet on, and consider, with the usual revisions to be made, superior to the other two. […] For someone as unprolific, or lazy, as I am, it’s a bitter blow, from which I’m just now recovering. I took it out on the red squirrels that have made the attic and the walls of this house their home; with trap, gun, and fence I fought them, as the character in Joyce’s “Counterparts” made up for everything by beating his children.
Anyway, I’m damn happy to have the grant and to be eating, as is Betty. She had a baby November 13, a boy, and we’re calling him James Ansbury, after my father. His father was also a James: the Ansbury was his mother’s name (she came from York, he from Waterford [Ireland] where all the Powerses come from). […]
Jim
ROBERT LOWELL
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
