9
Mary Farl Powers, 1952
Jim and Betty moved with the baby to St. Paul in mid-April, bringing to an end their adventure in rural living. They lived first in an apartment at 414 North Lexington Avenue while looking for a more permanent place. In the end, they moved back into the old Marlborough at 150 Summit Avenue around the end of May. Betty was expecting another baby in November.
ROBERT LOWELL
150 Summit Avenue, St Paul
July 1948
Dear Cal,
We’re all Americans. It is very damned hot in the land of the sky-blue water,… and I look forward to the summer encampment of the Order of St Bock. In the meantime I’ve placed gin in my aspergillum.1 That was nice of you to invite me and the family to Yaddo. I’d like to be there, but in August, for the races. Instead, though, I’ll be here and for two weeks on an island in Lake Superior.
I broke down, and I do not mean that lightly, and bought The Kenyon Review with your nun poem in it. I think it is very fine, which is what I told you, I think, at the time you were putting it together. I do have some doubts on Rabelais. I’ve been rereading him lately, and though I can see why Mother should have been reading him, would she? Wish I could come upon a few nuns reading Rabelais. I particularly like the brisk dialogue which takes place between Panurge and the Semiquaver Friar.
Do not lament your singleness. You are well-off, and I rather think you know it. Let that be taken as a word to the wise from the … and no commentary on me and mine. I wrote a review of Waugh’s new book2 for The Commonweal, my last venture in that field for some time to come. I hope if Taylor saw my review of his book, he liked it.3 I know I meant well, and if that didn’t come through, it is because I don’t know the forks of reviewing, for which thanks be to God. Meantime, as I say, we’re all Americans.
ROBERT LOWELL
150 Summit Avenue
St Paul, Minnesota
September 29, 1948
Dear Cal,
It’s night, and I’m just back from the Temple Baptist Church, where I heard an “ex-priest” tell them all about it. He is evidently one of the crowd which advertises all the time in The Nation. I came prepared to pity the man, I suppose, and indeed I did before he spoke, all during the time the various deacons gave thanks for his salvation, said deacons reminding me of the Jehovah’s Witnesses I’ve known; but when he began to speak, I could tell, or thought I could, that he was quite serious about it; and as the fates would have it, there were two Catholics sitting in front of me who giggled and sneered and sighed, “Oh, the lies!” So I came away, curiosity fairly well sated, and will have news for the brethren the next time we bend an elbow together. One very hot item is the plan to open up a home or seminary, it wasn’t quite clear, for those of them who want to pull out but can’t figure out where to go, and this to be established in St Paul or Mpls. […]
I’d like to take you up on Yaddo, but it is utterly impossible. Betty will have another baby in November, and even if that weren’t in the offing, my book keeps me here, also the rent we have to pay, and I might even mention that I’d need an invitation from Elizabeth,4 to whom extend my best wishes. I’ll admit the prospect of your putting my book into a sonnet interests me. Are you sure a couplet wouldn’t do it? After all, it’s just prose. […]
And you? Will you attend the World Series in Boston and throw out the first bottle? Things are pretty furious here on the apostolic-athletic level. The Saints (our team) are in the play-off, and if they win that, we’ll play Montreal in the Little World Series. If so, the box seats, more than ever, will be a sea of black suits. I have already rec’d orders and money from Rome to buy up a section. Did I tell you I now smoke cigars? I have to, if I don’t want to stand out in our crowd. Enjoy the Saratoga autumn. I imagine it’s very good.
Pax,
Jim
P.S. I sold the car; sold, I said. Ora for it.
Betty went to St. Cloud to stay with her parents to await the baby’s birth.
ROBERT LOWELL
150 Summit Avenue, St Paul
All Saints’ 1948 [November 1]
Dear Cal,
[…] Now an ironic thing is happening on the radio. My friend and candidate5 (the first time anything like this ever happened to me or anyone I’ve known) has just thanked us one and all for all we’ve done, while in the bathroom, stashed away, are the circulars I was supposed to circulate in this building, about sixty apartments. I’d postponed it till tonight, but now that he’s thanking us, I wonder if it isn’t too late. The candidate is really a nice fellow who never amounted to anything like all my friends, but he has deserted our ranks, and I still can’t believe it.
I drove Betty to St Cloud yesterday, and now she awaits the coming. At that time I’ll journey hence. Two babies is a lot. I have no idea how we’ll manage; it was enough with one. I may have to rent an office in the Pioneer or Guardian building. They look sufficiently broken-down to support literature. That’s an idea for a foundation. Given a billion dollars, I’d establish a trust to set up everybody in one old building, each with an office, with the name on the frosted glass: Theo. Roethke … Rob’t Lowell … Wm Barrett … B. Moon … The Pig … E. Pound … Mrs Chas Seide … Horace Cayton … Marg. Young … Card. Spellman … all the literary lights of this century and regular hours with lunch from 12:00 to 1:00. I forgot Clocker Webster. And myself, of course.
My book goes slowly. […] I am living here alone, doing my own cooking. Today it was breakfast: a glass of milk; lunch: T-bone steak, bread, milk; dinner: a malted milk; tonight: beer, olives, swiss cheese. All for now, Cal. Wish I were there. I saw a movie this afternoon which showed the Saratoga racetrack. I yearned to be there, making my selections.
Pax,
Jim
Drink my health in Sperry’s. Have you forgotten it … on Caroline Street, I believe.
Have you read Gogarty? Sackville Street? Tumbling in the Hay?
BETTY POWERS
150 Summit Avenue
November 5, 1948
Dear Betty,
[…] That is very interesting about your father sitting down with pencil and paper awaiting the returns after sixteen long years.6 I imagine my father did likewise. Fr Garrelts, I guess, is the only one who forecast the turn of events, except Harry himself. Fr G. has the best theory, I think: there just aren’t enough Republicans to go around; it is like the soft jobs and big money; just not enough of it to go around. Fr Murphy was left at the post too, hoping for a Rep victory. So far as anybody could tell, however, he was against the Dems because Barkley7 is “too old.” “Yes,” Fr G. agreed, “he’s about old enough for the cardinalate,” which put things in a stronger light, I guess. […]
You are wrong about my not missing you until the sheets need changing tomorrow. I miss you daily and at odd hours and minutes during the day. It is raining now, very grey and dull-grey, streets black under the wet. […] Well, I miss you, love you, and will be seeing you … and remember what I said about too soon rather than too late. Where will I stay? I will try to work, as ever, try, that is.
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. […]
I love you, then. […]
Jim