Part One
1916â1929
The most remarkable revelation in Katherine Anne Porterâs earliest letters is her fierce belief in her artistic talent and eventual success. In 1916, while she was in the center of what she later described as her âungodly struggle,â with very little evidence to suggest she would achieve the celebrated status she eventually would reach, she praised an unnamed lover for his faith in her. âHe believes I have the fibre of greatness and success, and never lets me forget it,â she wrote her sister Gay. âYou know,â she said, âI have to be believed in.â At that point in her life, twenty-six years old, penniless, with no formal education beyond the eighth grade, with two marriages and two divorces behind her, having suffered miscarriages and beatings from her first husband and still battling life-threatening illnessesâand with only a few negligible publications to her nameâshe was amazingly certain in her optimism.
By 1919, with her tuberculosis in abeyance, having survived influenza in the great pandemic of 1918, her faith in herself had not diminished. âI know well enough I am going to be a success in a very short while more,â she wrote Gay. She was in fact close to ending her apprenticeship, built on voracious reading for many years, writing stories and poems since childhood, and the practical craft of newspaper work. âI shall write well somedayâas well as anybody in America has ever written,â she assured Gay. She saw her move to New York as necessary: âThe time has come to do the work that will bring me to that stage.â
In New York she met persons who would guide her through the 1920s and shape much of her artistic future. Among her new acquaintances were Mexican artists who convinced her to go to Mexico, to write and to observe the exciting cultural revolution taking place. Back and forth between Mexico and the United States between 1920 and 1923, she found her creative voice in her first original pieces of fiction, while she also âdabbled a bit at timesâ in the revolution. For the remainder of the decade she struggled to support herself with freelance writing and editing and continued to publish at well-spaced intervals more finely crafted stories.
Although she bravely declared in 1924, âI have arrived at such a serene sort of feeling about my work,â there was nothing serene in her personal life. She moved from one love affair to another, experiencing the traumas of abortion and stillbirth and surgery that rendered her sterile. She recognized her romantic inclination that was at odds with her rationalistic art: âI have suffered a great deal from love,â she wrote Gay, âor rather the impossibility of finding an adequate substitute for illusion.â Her consolation was, in fact, her art, which had become a kind of religion. âNothing is for life with me,â she wrote, âexcept my preoccupation with writing. And that I did not choose. It merely remains, and I must suffer it.â By the end of the decade, when she was approaching forty years of age, satisfied with the quality if not the quantity of her artistic work, she was able to affirm her earlier optimism: âThe world grows to be a familiar place,â she told Gay, âwith no dark and terrifying corners, and no shocks and almost no strangeness.â
To: Gay Porter Holloway TLS 2pp. Maryland
[Woodlawn Union Tubercular Hospital
South Lamar and Columbia Streets]
Dallas, Texas. December 21st, 1916.
Darling Old Dear:â
Mary1 just called up and said there was a package from you to me at the office and Himself2 is bringing her out to see me this afternoon, with the sheaves upon His nice arms. I am all a-tiptoe to see what manner of box it may be. Honey, I am hanging my head in shame that I am not giving you anything this Christmas but the dinky little things I am sending. I canât even get the package made up til after Christmas, as I do not get paid until today, and we are so busy making the tree out here at Woodlawn, I wonât be able to finish getting your little things til Monday. But I am sure you understand.
Itâs great to play Santa Claus, Honey. Here is a little story the Dallas News Published (paid me $8.00 for it)3 and so far the people have sent me $67.50 to spend for me babies. And of all the telephone calls and visits from people who make much of me. I have the real Christmas spirit, I tell you, seeing how fine folks are when you just once touch their hearts. Himself is so proud of me he can hardly see straight, and calls me the Good Fairy and Lady Santa Claus, and all such, and says I am quite the most talked of person in Dallas today, as every body is planning to send or give something to the Children .. Its going to be a happy Christmas. I weigh 120 pounds, if you please, as they feed me so outrageously out here, and I donât turn my hand except to teach the kiddies, and stay in bed nearly all the time. Of course, this week and the next I will be up most of the time, seeing after things, then after that I expect to go very quietly til Spring, when I will undoubtedly be well and strong, when the Dallas News has promised me a good job then.4
And then, Youngun, you know all this would be dust and ashes in my mouth if it wasnât for knowing that my Darling Old Dad and Sissers and my one goat of a bruvver are all getting along so fat and fine, making money and keeping well. If it wasnât for that I would want to die. But even if we canât be together this year, knowing that all of us have plenty and at least arenât worrying about money (any more than every body else is, anyhow) is all I need, at least, to make this heaven on earth.
Himself is giving me a beautiful warm robe, slippers to match, with electric bed pad to keep me warm, and a nice man has given me a gorgeous bottle of my favorite perfume, La Boheme. Your package is on the way, and so I am getting more Christmas than I deserve, certainly, seeing I am giving almost nothing. But you know I always have fame and glory and plenty to eat and wear, with no ready cash ever. That is, I do when I am lucky. And when I am not lucky, no one starves more unwillingly than I!
If only I might be there to decorate the tree for Mary Alice and Paul Porter.5 But no such luck for now. I only solemnly promise thisâthat next year I shall help decorate their tree, and hope Breckenridge6 and Dad will also be there to see it. I hope we will have a real reunion by that time. Some how I feel there will be another Paul Porter by then, as Alice says Paul and Connie7 never write or visit any more, so I have my suspicions! I hope so, any how. This is a beautiful rambling sort of structure on the side of a hill with all sorts of wood and valleys around itâI can hardly wait for Spring to come, I know it will be so lovely out here. Open fires, and I sleep in blankets out in a long pavilion with the hot water bottle Himself gave me at my feet, and the down baby pillow Himself gave me at my head. So you see I am comfortable.
The Dear Heart has done everything for me, and we are immensely good friends. I mean we love one another very much, and its a strange affair, all told. But I am selfish, I guess, for its the kind that gives me everything, and takes nothing away; which looks to see if I am warm and well and fed and clothed and happy, and you know I never had a man love me like that. I have seen him only twice since I came here, but I write to him, and he calls me over telephone, but I am serene and go about my affairs, and nothing bothers me. He brings peace of mind and repose, which I have needed all my life. He believes I have the fibre of greatness and success, and never lets me forget it. You know I have to be believed in. Have met and become friends with the managing Editor of the News,8 and expect something good to come of it. He has promised me a place as soon as I can take it. So you see, I am going to come out of this all right.
Well, I am talking about my self a lot, but I thought you might want to hear. Tell me all about your self and the two Darlings, what they do, and say and wear, and all about them. Will be sending you a new picture soon. Please have a good one taken of the babies and yourself, and send on. Please send me also one each of those pictures of Toosey taken at Longview. Some how they got out of my grip last Spring, and I have wanted one ever since. Donât forget.
A merry, Merry Christmas to you, My Blesseds. I am up a tree as to what will be acceptable to Toosey and Toddles,9 but shall send them something to wear. I love you all extravagantly, and am happy as a june bug thinking what a fine Christmas you will have this year. Think of that nightmare two years ago! and be happier now.
With all my love and kisses, your very own,
Katherine Anne
To: Gay Porter Holloway ALS 8pp. Maryland
[Park View Hotel
Denver, Colorado]
Thursday Night.. [July 24, 1919]
Honey, your letter telling me of Little Mary Alice reached me today, nearly four days after Kunoâs telegram10 came saying our beloved Heart-Baby had been taken away.11 Oh, my dear and dearest, youâre having more than your share of bitterness in this world, and the whole desire of my heart now is to help you live over it somehow. I havenât a word to say except that I love you, my precious Sister; and you know I adored Mary Alice above all the other babies, as much as I love them.
It doesnât seem real that the wonderful hoped-and-prayed-for life has been snuffed out like a candle flame, and all that treasure of ours shut away from us ... donât know why we took it so for granted that the babies would all grow up, and have their day.... I canât say it is for the best, for I donât believe it. And my heart is so broken, I can do nothing yet except cry with you, Honey.
When you are able, please tell me a little about herâhow long she was sick, and what she said. Oh, she was so heavenly-sweet, I have remembered every minute I ever saw her these past four days. And do you know, a strange thing happened, Sunday Night. I went to bed rather late, very restless and tired. And all at once I began to think of youâall of youâvery strongly. Such a wave of homesickness and the wish to see you came over me, I cried until three oâclock. I made up my mind that if I still felt so in the morning I would go to Houston that day. And that day, about noon, the telegram came. I had a feeling that something had happened, but my mind fixed itself on Mary Alice senior, instead of the wee one.
Did you get my roses? I ordered two dozen little pale pink buds tied with silver ribbons, and had them telegraphed to you with a card âFrom Tante Katherine.â I was very anxious they should be sent in time to help make a little bower for her, but I am not sure I got the address exactly.
Gay, it sounds futile, but Iâm so glad you have the little boyâdoes he help any?
Day LaterâI have been quite a while writing this letter. But words say so little when a calamity like this overtakes us. We can only grieve it out, after the manner of our kind.
Your letter, coming as it did after the telegram, was only a sad explanation of a mysteryâI am trying not to think of our Blessed One as she must have been in the last days; I remember her as she was last year in Louisiana, in her blue dress and grey shoes, going across the bridge to the concert, with Lute12 in tow. She was a beauty-loving little soul.
Maybe I shouldnât write to you like this. But I canât write at all, really. Because it is all a dream, my dear, and we are shadows. And one day there will be none of us left, either, and these bodies will be part of the Great Earth again.
I would like to feel that the part of us that dreams, and loves beauty, and hopes and strives for better and happier things, will live always, and find a lovelier, free-er place where we shall see all our lost ones again and do all our work again with a clearer understanding.
But I seem to have no conviction on the subject. I can only see that our sorrows come without warning, and our joys are brief. And the important thing seems to be courage. Without it we are beaten from the beginning. And you have always had your share of it, surely.
I love you, Darling brave, wonderful Sister and I wish I could be with you now. And I am glad you were all together in the first big loss to our little family. We are so few, we canât spare our darlings.
Baby Dear, or some of you, write me very soon. Love to all of you, My Dears, Dad and Gay and Little Boy Holloway, and Kuno and Baby and Breckenridge and Paul and Concha and wee Dorothy Ray.13
Ever and ever your own,
Katherine Anne
I shall visit the Queen of Heaven Orphanage in a few days and tell Mother Superior about Baby Mary Alice.
To: Gay Porter Holloway TLS 3pp. Maryland
Friday afternoon [September 17, 1919]. Rocky Mountain News [1720 Welton Street, Denver, Colorado].
Will Bring Motherâs Picture with me.
Gay, Old DarlingâI wish I could write you every day, my heart is with you so every minute. My work keeps me bowed under a great load, but I feel as if I had not a thought except about you and my ever to be beloved and remembered Baby.
Of course your letters bring me realization of what that loss actually means to us, but the tiny details of her life, and the little descriptions of her as she was at the latest day of her dear life give me also memory pictures to keep. I grieve with you for her, and it does not seem at all possible that she has left us, and all those blessed hopes and dreams she represented are over and done with. I think I am nearest to you just now, old sweet, because indeed I did know what your hopes were, and how hard you struggled to give your Babies their rightful chance in the world. And tho I am over it all now, yet, like you, I would rather give up any one of the dear small Ones than to have them go thru the agonies of our forlorn childhood and terrible youth.
But it would never have been so with her, so long as you lived, I am sure. And she would never have dug into your heart so if she had not been beautiful loving and sensitive. I think both of us saw in her the shy souls of our own young years, and realized more than anybody her absolute need to be loved and surrounded with kindness. Oh, my dear, my heart is broken over that lost darling. I always had an idea that some time, maybe soon, I could have her with me for a while, and I know well enough I am going to be a success in a very short while more, and it was always in my mind that she should have, between us both, everything she needed for happiness when she grew a little older. I never said anything, because I have been seemingly such a failure, but I knew it was only my long preparation for fine work. And she was in my thoughts so much more than I can tell you now.
I think so much of her precious chin, cleft like a little apricot. She loved my story of how the Lord-of-All made that dimple with his thumb just before sending her out to you, while the angel held her up before Him by the nape of her neck.
I told her that story dozens of times when we were in Louisiana. She would come and lean against my bed, and say, âNow Tante, tell me about how I got my dimple!â And she would always laugh, and her eyes would shine, when I came to the part about the Lord-of-All touching her chin with the tip of his thumb, and saying, âNow!â
I wish you could come up here for a while, but honey, I am going to New York almost at once, and I wish to pass thru there and sail from Galveston in about three weeks. I thought of visiting with all of you for a few days, and then on to the next stage of my development. Iâve more than made good hereâway more than made good, dear one, and they are offering me much more to stay. But I shall go now, and do better things. The time has come.
I shall write well some dayâas well as anybody in America has ever written, and the time has come to do the work that will bring me to that stage.
I want very much to see all of you, and the dear babies. I wrote a letter to dad the other day, and I donât know what I did with itâwhet...