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John Bellairs arrived in Massachusetts in January 1968 with some serious thinking ahead of him: he had cut back his intended year in England to a mere six months because of financial straits and homesickness; his last teaching position had ended miserably and he had no immediate job prospects lined up; and he would rather spend his time reading and writing, focusing on his budding career as an author. He was, quite simply, at a crossroads and unsure where he was going. Because many of the friends he had met in South Bend and Chicago had migrated eastward during his holiday – and because John very much needed to reintegrate himself into his old social circles and rekindle old friendships – John decided his future, too, was along the east coast, specifically in New England.
Bellairs settled in Boston in the first weeks of 1968, living with various friends off and on before settling into his own apartment on Boston's Garden Street on the backside of Beacon Hill. His wife-to-be, Priscilla Braids, remembers visiting the Boston apartment only once, recalling it as small with scant food in the refrigerator - "one frozen steak and one frozen head of iceberg lettuce" - and being typical of old Boston town houses. Two other minor remembrances were the empty pack of Pall Mall cigarettes that remained in the entryway during John's time living there, and near the apartment, at the corner of Garden and Cambridge Streets, was a brick building that housed an evangelical church. Priscilla remembers how John was often “amused” at hearing singing when he passed by.
After John and Priscilla's marriage in June, John moved directly to the Cambridge apartment Priscilla had been living in for two years on Ellery Street.
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