In January 1961, Dale Fitschen was living in an apartment on 56th Street apartment with roommates John Moriarty, Lew McFarlane and John Drew. Marilyn Fitschen says this quartet lived there only for a quarter, before “John Moriarty found a bigger, better apartment on Woodlawn near 53rd Street.” When they moved, Bellairs replaced Drew but only for the summer.

From time to time, the Fitschens hosted parties at their apartment, celebrating thesis deadlines, final exams, or “even when someone had the thirty-five cents for a quart of beer or $1.25 for a jug of Gallo's Red Burgundy wine.” Marilyn says their parties usually involved a game, such as Ghosts or Botticelli, and would always elicit a story from John. John Drew recalls Bellairs' gift for storytelling at these parties: "tubby, cherubic, a sort of younger Middle Western version of Father Brown. John he would settle back in a chair, where others reclined on the floor, and, after a muffled snort or two, would give vent to some facetious fantasy that cumulated in a chuckle - but not always."

Of his wild tales, one that the audience – “being mostly Roman Catholic and Episcopalian and even a couple of ex-seminarians,” notes Marilyn - begged for more about was the one of the miraculous life of Saint Fidgeta. After one such party in early 1963, Dale and Marilyn discussed the popularity of this silly saint and suggested to John that he put the story down in writing – and for possible publication.

Marilyn remembers John scoffing at the thought, "but we could sense a hint of skeptical interest."

John’s whereabouts get a bit sketchy from 1961 onward:

• John made one of his first, if not the first, trips to England in late 1961 or early 1962. We don’t know when he left – presumably just for a few weeks – but we know he returned by early February.
• Bernard Markwell says at one point Bellairs “moved out of the apartment and into Laughlin Hall to get more work done.” We’re not sure the exact date of any such move, or how long he stayed in the now-demolished apartment building.
• In the summer of 1962, Markwell and John took rooms at the university's Alpha Delta Phi house. Our best guess is that the fraternity house was being used as an all-purpose summer residence for students, graduate or otherwise – no Animal House antics, in other words.
• In the fall of 1962, Markwell and Marilyn Fitschen believe Bellairs found a new roommate in Joe Ryan, whom Bellairs met and befriended at Notre Dame; only vague directions are known (“across the Midway” “on 59th Street”).