KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud
May 2, 1957
Dear Katherine Anne,
[…] We must soon move. We have hated it here in St Cloud, but we have loved being in this old house, which is now 101 years old, the oldest in town, painted red, barn red, with green trim, and owned by two maiden ladies, one of whom is failing in health and the other is living in California. First, ten days ago, an appraiser visited us, with no explanations except that he’d been sent by the owners’ insurance agent. I wrote and rec’d reassurances that the house would be retained for some time to come. Ultimately, it would be consumed by the Teachers College across the street (they have made dormitories out of two imposing residences since we’ve lived here), and there is always something in the newspapers about their needing money to expand. Recently, the “Teachers” part of the name has been dropped, which makes it St Cloud State College, more in line with its true purpose, though preparing teachers is still an important part of its work, and this change is expected to aid faculty members in getting their books published — I am paraphrasing the press.
Well, yesterday we heard that Jan. ’58 might be the latest we could occupy the house. This, in effect, with two children in school, means we’ll have to move and be somewhere else in the fall. We are hoping it will somehow be put off, that we can stay here another school year, but it is not likely: there is the career of a young college president to be considered too (he is also president of the local chamber of commerce); the more he builds, the more likely he is to get the call to a better pulpit, say, Iowa State, and so on up the ladder. Of course I am prejudiced. If one could believe that what is going on across the street is education, it would be different. But here are country boys and girls continuing their high-school life, never, I think, encountering the idea of a university, or anything like it, in their entire education.
Well, we aren’t the only ones soon to be ousted. The squirrels, both red and grey, go about their business with no thought of anything but their stomachs and next winter. There must be between ten and twenty squirrels resident on the property (the red ones were in the walls of the house until I came and fought them back and sank wire in concrete around all the porches, stoning, trapping, shooting, a man possessed for one whole summer). So much for that. We expect we’ll take a terrible beating on appliances and furniture when we move, for we’ll sell most of it. Probably we’ll try Ireland again.
I rented an office downtown a couple of months ago and have been doing very well with my work there in the afternoons. I found that I could work then. I had got the idea that the only time was night for me, but this was due in great part to children, I know now.
I haven’t been going down to the office since Saturday, though, for on Sunday I had to go to the hospital and have my appendix removed. I returned home on Tuesday and am still feeling the stitches and also the surprise and indignity of it: I have been lucky in the past, escaping the everyday illnesses and accidents. So my step is slow these days, and the Old World is ahead of me, and at times I don’t feel up to it, to going abroad with four children, two more than last time, when I was five or six years younger, and settling down again. Still, I know it’s the right thing to do. It is a terrible fact that there is no one I know and respect who, living here, in Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, or anywhere else, isn’t unhappy, an exile already, and becoming more and more of one as American society changes for the worse. All kinds of problems abroad, of course, but at least the children can get an education before it’s too late: however much I wouldn’t want mine to suffer needlessly, I would like to see them educated. Betty, who thinks she is more attached to things here than I am but sees the folly of remaining, has printed a card and put it over the doorway in the kitchen, to steady her. It reads:
In exitu Israel de Egypto,
domus Jacob
de populo barbaro
[…]
Jim
Journal, May 31, 1957
DECAY: Old men, who a few years ago were wearing light canary and green and blue and white sport shirts of transparent nylon, I see this year are wearing caps of same hues. Bet they’re nylon. Have strap in back like a wool cap. Wonder if they would wear a sign saying, “I’m an old Jackass.” Give sign as premium as they used to give you a bat or ball when you bought a new suit at Myers Brothers.
Before leaving St. Cloud for Ireland, the Powers family traveled by train to Albuquerque to visit Jim’s parents, his brother and sister, and their families. It was a bitter, unhappy time.
MICHAEL MILLGATE
June 3, 1957
Dear Michael,
[…] Your coming trip sounds brutal to me, but then you are young and can always console yourself with the thought that you’re just passing through. Perhaps I’m unusually sensitive at the moment: we — Betty and I and the four children — are going to Albuquerque later this month, by train: what a way to die! My mother and father, brother and sister, live there. I hate the Southwest, the dust and disorder. Priestley, in Journey Down a Rainbow, is right.
Sorry you can’t make it to St Cloud, but I think it may be just as well. Our life is breaking up here. The old house we live in is doomed, the lovely grounds probably scheduled to be a parking lot, all this part of St Cloud Teachers College’s expansion program. We must get out by January 1958, but have decided our flight should not be in winter, and have booked passage on the Britannic leaving New York on October 3; next stop Cobh. We hope to rent a house with at least five bedrooms, not far from Dublin and on the sea if possible. I am formulating my ad for The Irish Times: Immigrant returning requires … […] I had it planned that I should finish my novel and then go to Ireland. I love my little office. But it’s not to be, and I must try to dissect the corpus of my novel for a story or two and still not kill the thing. This is old stuff for me, and I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to do it again.
All for now, then, Michael. I hope to see you in Ireland. I don’t know what my address will be there, but will drop you a line when we find a place. In any case, I am always to be found in the ten-shilling enclosure at Leopardstown Racecourse. A pint of plain is your only man.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
St Cloud, Minnesota
July 8, 1957
Dear Fr Egan,
Today I am 40, and so far no signs of life beginning. However, I was born around 5:00 p.m., as I understand it, and it’s only about two now. Greetings, in any case. […]
Now about this long journey to Albuquerque — don’t ever do it. Very rough going on the Rock Island, failure of air-conditioning partway coming back, proximity of the little people hard to take, seeing what they eat and read, and returning on the Super Chief, which ain’t nothing but a train except for the Turquoise Room and sweaty odors wafting through the sleeping cars. For the best in travel, I suggest the Enterprise, first class, running between Cork-Dublin-Belfast. You know I often eat a Clark Bar at 4:00 p.m., taking it with a glass of cold water, and called in vain for some on the Super Chief. In Ireland, I switch to Cadbury’s Turkish Delight.
Suffering from the heat here, though we now have something approaching welcome relief. I spend my time at home waxing my trunks and remind myself of Noah somehow preparing for the Flood. We have three trunks and can use at least two more of the type (wardrobe); I find them at the Goodwill. I have washed off all the stickers except one: Shepheard’s Hotel, Cairo.