After the war, John and his friends returned to the States and were getting situated in various jobs and careers. They were looking for opportunities and figuring out what they were going to do next. John relied on correspondence, by postal mail, with his friends to keep in touch. He saved these letters which are a window into the late 1940s and 1950s.
June 25, 1946
95 Cherry St NY2 NY
Dear John,
Thanks to Scruggs your writings are getting national circulation. He sent on your letter to us, we gave the news to John, and then passed the letter on to Roy and Bill….Scruggs wrote he would send our letter on, so I assume you have all of the news about our move and our apartment.
Carl and John are working hard this week trying to get their studio arranged. I don’t recall if we told the details of that in our letter. In case we didn’t – John and Peg have an apartment on the fourth floor of a building a couple of doors down the street, and the boys have the third floor apartment directly under it to use for a studio. The building is on a triangular corner so the big front room is triangular in shape and has fine windows. Behind that, running across the triangle, are three smaller rooms. They will be kitchen, dining room and bedroom in the apartment; and office and photographic rooms in the studio.
They managed to get a little lumber and Carl has built two large drawing tables, and John has done a nice modern coffee table. They also have some files, stools, chairs, etc for the studio and all should be in working order soon. Peg and I are going to take on the job of setting up a morgue for them in the files. All they really need now is enough art work to keep them busy!
Life in the slums is proving to be a lot of fun. We are rapidly losing all modesty, what with very noisy toilets right off the living room, and bathing facilities in the kitchen. I’ve become quite inured to cooking breakfast while Carl soaks away in the tub.
There is never a dull moment between the extraordinary sights and the stream of company. Saturday night we had a drunk who sang in the street below our window for an hour around three o’clock in the morning. He alternated between waltzing to his own singing and waving a can opener which he threatened to carve up the police. Sunday morning we had a big religious parade complete with church dignitaries, old men, boy scouts and the Salvation Army band. In the afternoon the wind changed and we had the Fulton Fish Market and the garbage dump blowing our way. We did our best to ignore it all by keeping our noses buried in tall glasses of beer.
Shopping here is a lengthy process. The first difficulty is the meat shortage. We have been living on fish, chicken and ingenuity. Everything is sold in separate shops, so I go to the baker, the fish market, the chicken man, the delicatessen and the open air vegetable market. It is a full time career…
Is there any chance of luring you to this wonderful town of liquor and leisure? I really think you should take some time before school begins to come back here and wash the Oklahoma dust from your throat with a few deep-dish martinis….
I feel quite heroic having written all of this without a typewriter and shall expect a long letter in return…
Take care of yourself,
Betty & Carl
