Gratefully,
Jim
CHARLES SHATTUCK
Avon, Minnesota
July 15, 1946
Dear Chuck,
A note to let you know I am still here, did not come to Chicago after all. It will be later, I think. My reason for deserting this seeming paradise was that days go by and I get nothing written, being too occupied with the little body politic, the trials and tribulations of living too close to too many people. […] I do not fit into the pattern of life I find here. There is too much to deal with all the time: meals, dishes, company, humor, all the product of another unit, my wife’s family, on whose good graces we seem to presume, and their time is not my time, nor their ways my ways. We have no open difficulty. It is just that I constantly fail to come up to their idea of a son-in-law. And inside me there is a constant dialogue that never gets spoken aloud. Once I would have tried to cut a path through them. Now, no more. I retire. They think I am physically ill. I say, going along, I feel a little better now, each time I’m asked. […]
Pax,
Jim
Jim and Betty (who was expecting a child in March) traveled to Brewster, on Cape Cod, and lived in a house belonging to friends of Harry Sylvester’s. They intended to remain there until January 1947.
CHARLES SHATTUCK
Brewster, Massachusetts
October 8, 1946
Dear Chuck,
[…] So far Brewster has been very much to our liking. We have had clams, mussels, and oysters from the bay, and I like all those. The worst thing is not having a car, making us dependent on the Sylvesters, even for milk (nobody will bother to come down here where we are). The next worst thing, now more under control, is the fleas. The people who own the house have a dog, and the dog has fleas. The people and dog are gone, but the fleas are always with us.
[…] Pax,
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Brewster by the Shore
Tuesday, November 19, 1946
Dear Father Egan,
Rec’d your letter some time ago and very happy to have it, to know we are missed, and not in the usual way, in Minnesota. […] Betty is fine. You knew, I think, from reading a letter from Harry last summer, in which it came up, that she is to have a baby in March. Should we call it Harvey or Savonarola? I guess with the war over, and Russia the bête noire again, Dr B. is having a field day with his pamphlets and addresses to the dear ladies. I hope you are still on his list. I see from The New York Times Book Review (which we read avidly here, being authors, all of us) that “Our Sunday Visitor described The Scarlet Lily as ‘a bang-up, gripping word picture of Mary Magdalene.’”2 Bruce is also publishing a “thought provoking book for everyone interested in the future of America”—After Hitler Stalin? Or Blessed are the
Jim
Any rumors about who’s taking over Ray’s job with the Saints?3
Betty suffered a miscarriage on December 12 and returned to Minnesota by air to stay with her parents at their home in St. Cloud. Jim spent a few days in New York, then traveled to Washington, D.C., to visit his friend John Haskins before going to Chicago to stay with his parents. He spent a couple of weeks, including Christmas, there.
BETTY POWERS
4453 North Paulina Street, Chicago
Christmas Eve 1946
Dear Betty,
It is about ten o’clock, and all through the house not a creature is stirring except me, Mickey, and my grandmother. The tree is lit up and going; there is a red candle burning in the window; the presents have been opened; and my brother is out and also my parents. I have written two notes to people. Now you, after much sitting and staring into the tree, wondering how it’s going with you, if the presents are opened there, if you are having refreshments (eggnogs and toddies unlikely, on consideration, probably coffee). It is another sad Christmas for me, the third or fourth in a row, and I no longer know why, only think I’ve seen my last merry one. Oh, yes, my grandmother insists that I tell you she has not forgotten you but can’t get out and shop, a fact which is manifest but which puzzles her nonetheless. […]
So glad you like the house. So sorry the water and electricity aren’t coming around. Don’t get yourself frustrated over that. I don’t have any idea how much money we have — though it’s safe to say not much — but again I think we ought to pay people, I mean the plumber, for services rendered. I thought so after other occasions of charity, and so did you, if I remember. I miss you very much, Betty. You must know that. I am hoping, but despairing, that our life in the future will not be aggravated as it has been in the past. I trust you got my wire, Merry Christmas, Betty, this afternoon and knew it meant more than that. You know how you have to put it in a wire and will realize it was that which kept me from saying more. I say it now. I love you. Do not be downhearted. Remember some of the things we have learned together about us.
Jim
BETTY POWERS
Chicago
December 31, 1946
Dear Betty,
Tuesday morning. Rec’d your letter written Sunday night, the sad one, and was glad to get it, but sorry to hear you feel so low. I don’t know what to say — and am sending this special so you’ll have it about as soon as the one I wrote yesterday, the bad one. I don’t understand what you feel so bad about. Aside from my not being there, that is, and even that is not too clear. We have no place to live. We should have all our strife over again if I were there now, living with your relatives. You know that. I am pretty much the same. Hemmed in and haunted here, yes, but not landlocked. I can get out of the house and go somewhere, see somebody, though not many anymore. I saw Colonel Blimp, an English movie, last night, alone. Then went over on North Clark in a couple of joints and watched some stripteasers while I had three bottles of beer. Then I got on the streetcar and came home. […]
And now, my love, I leave you … loving you.
Jim
BETTY POWERS
Chicago
January 2, 1947
Dear Betty,
Your brief letter written last Monday night arrived this morning. I was glad to get it, though it was a very dismal account of your life there. Something seems to be missing, and you say it’s me — but I am not so sure it wouldn’t be that way if I were there. Well, we’ll see. I have more or less decided to do a certain story and would like to finish it before leaving Chicago. It should not take so long. It would seem that we need some money. I don’t feel I can begin the novel with so much poverty lurking about us. I hear nothing about “The Valiant Woman,”4 and you say nothing about your stuff. I wrote a note to Cunningham at Collier’s and mentioned your story. If I can write this story, and write it right, it might go somewhere. Then we could get a car and have a few bucks, say, enough to carry us into March or April. […]