Olga Rudge & Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well..."

2
Julia and Her Daughter
10
1895–1909
‘‘One had the best, or one went without’’
Meeting Olga in Paris, Ezra’s friend Ford Madox Ford was astonished
to discover she was an American from Ohio: ‘‘I did not know such beautiful
flowers blossomed in that desert!’’
When Olga visited her birthplace of Youngstown for the first time as an
adult, in 1969, it was a pleasant valley town. But in 1895, the year of her
birth, the air was polluted with smoke from the mills. In summer, townsfolk
escaped to Mill Creek Park on the new open-air trolley line, boat and
tub races on the Mahoning River drew large crowds to the water’s edge,
and excursion tickets on the fastest trains to Atlantic City and Cape May,
New Jersey, then cost only twelve dollars. In winter, skating and harvesting
ice on the river and Mill Creek were popular activities, and tears would
flow after Giacomo Puccini’s The Bohemian Girl (better known as La
Bohème) was performed at the Youngstown Opera House.
No record exists of the first meeting of Olga’s parents, but we may
assume that Julia O’Connell met her future husband after a performance at
the Youngstown Opera House. Julia was a classical singer from New York
City, and Olga loved to tell a story of the stormy night her mother, dressed
in concert finery and flowing cloak, took the ferry to Brooklyn and was