Jim
BETTY POWERS
Beardsley, Minnesota
July 1951
Dear Betty,
This is Thursday afternoon. I look out the window and see Fr Egan working some kind of gasoline agricultural instrument. I’m using his big wide-carriage typewriter, the one he probably uses for his mimeographing. I’ve been working in the church basement but thought of knocking out this letter to you here in the house. I just took a bath, having done some carpentry work for Fr Egan this morning, cutting three inches off a chest he has by the refrigerator for brooms, jars, etc. Now the chest and refrigerator — reefer, as you and Mr Chopp say — fit snug, and Fr Egan, possibly even the housekeeper, is happy. […] Much love.
Jim
I was compelled to buy a can of Velvet, America’s Smoothest Smoke. Pretty tough, after Brindley’s, but I suppose I’ll harden to it.
On his return from Beardsley, Jim joined the rest of the family, living with the Wahls. In October, he visited his own parents, who had moved from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Charlotte and her family now lived.
HARVEY EGAN
3509 East Smith Avenue
Albuquerque, New Mexico
October 7, 1951
Dear Fr Egan,
As you can see from my address, I am visiting my folks — and that means that the story was sold, after all, to The New Yorker, after rewriting.18 […] I expect to leave in about ten days. We have made preparations to leave for Ireland on October 25: applications for passport, passage, etc. It is going to run into more money than we hoped (for instance, no tourist accommodations available, have to go cabin class, because of our last-minute arrangements), but then, as you always say, what is money? Standard Oil gasoline down here is known as Chevron. Great need for grass and trees. Drop me a line if there’s anything you want me to look into, Penitentes,19 etc. All for now.
Jim
12. The water, the green, the vines, stone walls, the pace, all to my taste, November 7, 1951–November 3, 1952
Leopardstown Racecourse, 1952
The Powers family boarded the SS America on October 25, 1951, bound for Ireland, and arrived in Cobh on October 31, 1951. Jim was smitten by the look of the country on the train from Cobh to Cork: “Most beautiful vegetation … hundreds of plants growing together and many kinds of trees. Gulls and many varieties … of fishing birds trekking in the mud of tideland. Stone fences which would be worth a fortune to a millionaire in U.S. Moss growing in cracks in slate roofs. Green and grey the color of the day.” In Cork he found, as was his wont, the plight of humanity reflected in the animal world: “Gulls crying, swans moored, it seemed, against the other bank, not to associate with gulls. But fresh sewage pouring into river — the Lee — brings them together at intervals. Commentary on reality, on gaining one’s daily bread, what you have to do.”
HARVEY EGAN
Standard Hotel
Harcourt Street
Dublin
November 7, 1951
Dear Fr Egan,
I’ve just told the girls a story about a dirty old grey rat that used to eat mice and baby seagulls, and now the questions are flying concerning the whole rotten business. We arrived in Ireland one week ago, went up to Cork, stayed there until last Saturday, then came here. We’re staying at the Standard Hotel on Harcourt Street, famous for Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw, a high school up the street they both attended. The street is beautiful in my opinion, solid Georgian stone and brick, immense windows, lots of brass plates, oversize doorknobs. The big business in Dublin or in Cork, for that matter, is candy, sweets of all kind, tobacco, and stout. The big business on Harcourt Street is “Dental Surgery”; door after door with brass plate, So and So, Dental Surgeon. Needless to say, I’m telling them what’s wrong with them. Every day I grab a candy bar — Cadbury’s milk chocolate is the favorite — out of people’s hands. Naturally, until I explain why, this strikes them as odd. My theory, derived from you doubtless, is that they eat all this junk, have tea all the time too, because they don’t eat a square meal all day. It must be a great place for the tapeworms.
We’ve discovered that the meat here is good, the tea, eggs, but look out for the vegetables — if cold, like the remains you see in the sink after the dishes are done, a sprig of sad lettuce, a tomato skin with one seed hanging on it; if hot, just mush. They should bring in the Chinese to teach them about vegetables. Instead, there’s a big deal about African missions, tag day, etc., Negro dolls dressed up like Martin de Porres. After seeing Santa Fe, hearing McKeon on the need for money there — to work with people who are already presumably Catholic — I am cold to African missions.
There’s something rotten about religion here, I think, and something great, both to an extent, I suspect, that we don’t have in America.1 Little boys and girls, all patches and hobnailed shoes or rubber boots without stockings, kneeling for half an hour at a time, apparently praying. I don’t remember anything like that where I come from. Of course the gigglers and punchers are here too, but the others stay with me. On the other side, there are many hard-faced women, some in black shawls, and I’m not so pleased by the look of them. Perhaps they all had drunks for husbands, or perhaps they didn’t have husbands to avoid the inevitable, I don’t know. […]
The poverty here is tremendous. It’s a Dickens world. Lots of talk about the duty Irishmen have to stay here, not to emigrate, and yet it’s a dog’s life if one stays, I think, in too many cases. Betty was at an employment bureau, went down to “interview” someone to look after the girls when we go looking at houses tomorrow and Friday. Women all herded together in a common room. The woman who runs the employment agency shouts at one — like scooping out a minnow — and she comes. Name: Mary Ryan. Wage: 10 shillings ($1.40) a day; the employment agency’s charge (of us): 10 shillings. A maid is supposed to be lucky to get $5.00 a week, but there’s also a shortage. Many contradictions. For instance, a worn copy of Prince of Darkness in the rental library of Eason’s, the biggest bookstore in Dublin. Naturally, I picked it up and demanded that it be banned. […] All for now. (I realize I’ve overstepped my limits, set by you, in writing such a long letter, but ask forgiveness) …
Jim
Jim and Betty rented Dysart, a house in Greystones, county Wicklow, and took up residence on November 15, 1951. Betty hired a sixteen-year-old girl, B___, to look after Mary and me while she wrote. B___ was good fun, taking us on walks during which she would meet her best friend. This girl, also sixteen, was already equipped with a complete set of false teeth and earned our horrified admiration on one occasion by taking them out to remove a piece of toffee.
HARVEY EGAN
Dysart, Kimberley Road
Greystones, County Wicklow
Heaven on Earth
November 21, 1951