Katherine Anne Porter Remembered

Robert Plunkett

13 / robert Plunkett robert Plunkett (1919–) is the son of Helen rebecca (becky) edelman crawford and her first husband, charles robert Plunkett, a professor at new york University . After his parents divorced when he was very young, Plunkett attended various boarding schools in the area; after serving in the U.s. Army in europe he entered the massachusetts institute of technology, where he earned a Ph.d. in mechanical engineering in 1948. He worked at General electric for ten years and taught at rice University before joining the faculty at the University of minnesota . At his retirement in 1988 he had authored more than sixty articles and had been elected to the national Academy of engineering. He lives in Austin, texas, with his wife, Helen catherine bair Plunkett. source: robert Plunkett, telephone interviews with darlene Harbour Unrue, 11 may 2006 and 13 October 2007. Katherine Anne Porter was a good friend of my mother, becky crawford, and my stepfather, John crawford.28 she was a frequent houseguest at their tall, old fourstory house at 74 Orange street in brooklyn. my mother was interested in leftist causes, and she was interested in people, especially writers and artists. most of the people who gathered at the brooklyn house were pacifists and anarchists, and they all had an interest in art. they also were fearful of deportation because of their politics and ethnicity, since those were the years of the Palmer raids,29 carried out by the U.s. Justice and immigration departments and targeting russians (and russian Jews especially). i assume that Katherine Anne shared the interests and worries of my mother and her other friends, although i wouldn’t necessarily have known that during the period from which i remember her, 1927 to 1930, when i was eight to eleven years old. i was away at boarding school most of the time, but i spent holidays with either my mother and stepfather or my father and stepmother, Louise. my mother and father were friendly, and it wasn’t uncommon for all of them to be together, most often at my mother’s, on holidays, when there were usually twenty or twenty-five persons gathered. Part 2. new york, connecticut, and mexico / 49 i remember seeing at my mother’s house at one time or other such persons as emma Goldman,30 caroline Gordon,31 Allen tate,32 dorothy day, William sanger (the husband of margaret), Peggy Guggenheim,33 eva Le Gallienne,34 Hart crane,35 malcolm and Peggy cowley,36 eugene O’neill,37 and richard Wright.38 bill rollins, who had written a book very popular in russia, i learned later, lived at my mother’s house a lot.39 etched in my memory is a particular scene between bill and Katherine Anne. she was leaning over the railing of the third-floor porch, and bill was in the yard below. He said, “i’m going to spit in your eye.” Katherine Anne, who didn’t seem to me to have much of a sense of humor, especially when it was directed at her, said, “now why would you want to do that?” in the backyard of the Orange street house my mother and stepfather and their friends enjoyed drinks during Prohibition. Once when my mother, stepfather , and several other persons were all sitting out there in the backyard drinking , my baby half sister, mary Jane, threw one of her famous tantrums, holding her breath until she turned blue. my mother and stepfather rushed inside with her, but that didn’t stop the party. Katherine Anne and bill rollins stayed on and kept on drinking as if there had been no interruption at all. Katherine Anne and bill actually were put in charge of both the house and mary Jane when my mother and stepfather went to bermuda to get liquor, which despite Prohibition could easily be brought through customs in those days. i don’t remember that Katherine Anne had a particular interest in me or even mary Jane. And although my mother mentioned that Katherine Anne had been a patient in tuberculosis hospitals, i don’t remember her being ill and staying in her room. she seemed to always be in the middle of the socializing. As a child, i didn’t have an opinion on her looks. my recollection of her is of a very skinny little sprite with longish white hair. ...