OLGA RUDGE BECOMES A SINGLE MOTHER WITH EZRA POUND AS THE BIRTH FATHER

At twenty six years old, in 1921, Olga went to Capri, before it became a tourist spot, where there were many women living, artists and musicians, what could be called a lesbian colony.  She went there with the woman who she had partnered with for her performances, pianist Renata Borgatti, who was lesbian, and they shared housing.  The question lingers, the possibility that the two women did have a lesbian relationship.  Olga seemed to deny it, was even a bit defensive, and yet, it seems that Ezra considered that she might have had an experience.  What is known is that the two women were life-long collaborators, and that Ezra Pound got used to Renata's temperament. Olga wrote years later that the three men most important in her life, her father, Egerton, and Ezra all liked Renata but that might have been sentimentality.  Egerton continued to profess his love for Olga that summer and in some way Olga continued to love him, for she would someday be buried in a red kimona that he had brought back from Japan for her. Ezra had attended Olga's performance, and we know they had written to each other, but exactly when the couple became a couple remains a mystery.

Whatever the case there is evidence that Ezra was slow to acknowledge or accept the new circumstances of his life. He remained married to Dorothy, and was known for socializing without her, but when he had Olga come to Rapolla, Italy, in February 1924, he installed her in the same hotel where he and his wife were staying,  which angered her.  Meanwhile Egerton again proposed that he and Olga marry. These were years in which both Olga and Ezra traveled for performances and business and to connect with their peers, family and friends. She went back and forth to London. They came and went and so there many have been weeks or months in which their paths did not cross.  And, there is always a question of how much Dorothy knew or accepted. The Pounds were thinking that Rapolla would be their permanent home. It can also not be assumed that it was Ezra who seduced the much younger Olga. He may have kept a certain distance in their relationship or his wife might have tried to do that in the beginning. But they certainly managed to meet up because Olga became pregnant by Ezra.  Ezra and Dorothy remained childless and rumors were that Dorothy had never warmed to sexuality.

Excerpt page 56:

In Olga's view, Ezra should not be deprived of the privilege of having a child, a torchbearer. They had a daughter by "mutual consent." Olga wrote "but it was I who wanted the child, and saw no reason to make him responsible... EP could not have undertaken the child's upbringing, and OR was not counting on it." When she first mentioned the subject, Ezra had turned down the suggestion: the world was no place to bring a child into, he said, especially without economic security. ......  she did not mention the subject again until an unidentified patron if the arts, a friend of both, suggested to Ezra that she would supervise the upbringing of Olga's child and support it financially.  With this commitment, Ezra changed his mind and asked Olga if she might change hers.

***

It's possible that the unknown art patron was lesbian Natalie Barnes, who's friendship with Ezra was enduring.  In any case, Olga decided she would not accept financial help. She though stipends from her father and subletting her deceased mother's Paris apartment would suffice

Olga Rudge gave birth after a long and difficult labor that required a surgery, a daughter Mary, and she registered Arthur Rudge, the name of her brother who had died in World War I, as the father, to spare her daughter and Ezra future difficulties. She had given birth in a town north of Rome at a time when unaccompanied women were not welcome in hotels and she had kept her pregnancy quiet from some of her peers and was not honest with her own father.  Baby Mary was premature and not robust and Olga could not breast feed. She was left with a wet nurse in the village so that the baby would prosper and Olga could continue to perform concerts and earn money.

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Reviews, selection of excerpts, narrative.

OLGA RUDGE VIOLINIST MISTRESS OF POET EZRA POUND : WRITING LETTERS TO EACH OTHER BEGAN AND PRESERVED THEIR LONG RELATIONSHIP

WHAT THOU LOVEST WELL by Anne Conover Carson is a primary reference for this month's posts.

OLGA RUDGE

(Olga Ludovica (Louise) Rudge)

1895-1996  (one hundred and one years old!)

EZRA POUND  

(Ezra Weston Loomis Pound)

1885-1972

Olga outlived the love of her life by twenty-four years. She did not consider herself to be his mistress because, she said, he never supported her. That's attitude is of interest here at Mistress Manifesto as we attempt to define and understand unconventional and alternative relationships. Does being a Mistress require being Kept?  I don't think so! Both Olga and Ezra earned some money but also depended on money from family - in his case from his wife's - and patrons of the arts.

Ezra's grave is at San Michele cemetery in Venice, Italy. Olga was taken in my their daughter Mary when she could not longer live alone, but she was buried next to decades-long love.

***

Anne Conover Carson's book is about the love story of an accomplished poet and his accomplished violinist mistress, both American ex patriots, his fame enduring, her's not as well known. He was a married man who never divorced. She never married but when it came to their daughter, saw the positives in him divorcing and marrying her. Early in their relationship, but when she was closer to thirty than twenty, Olga made the exceptional choice to bear a child by Ezra and had a daughter they named Mary Rudge. Mary would have children and Olga, who lived to be 101, became a grandmother and great-grandmother.  

Olga Rudge experienced conflict with Ezra, who may have had narcissistic personality disorder and clearly had episodes of mental illness. He may have wavered in his intentions or may have keenly felt himself between his wife and mistress.  No doubt the women had to share him.

Ezra and Olga met in Paris at the famous salon held by Natalie Clifford Barney.   

Excerpt: page 3

Barney was some twenty years Olga's senior and was the leader of a freedom-loving and bohemian group of intellectual women in the early 1900's - Collete,  Anna de Noailles, and the spy Mata Hari. Another generation, Olga's contemporaries, succeeded them : English suffragettes, militant feminists and lesbians, tolerant heterosexuals and asexual androgyns. .......  Musical reputations were established at Barneys; salon, and Renata Borgatti, Olga's accompanist, incited her there after the two women returned from a sun-filled action on the Isle of Capri.  Olga recognized Ezra, the tall American wearing a signature brown velvet jacket, as someone she had seen at concerts in London the year before.  

***

In 1895 when Olga Ludovica (Louise) Rudge was born in Youngstown, Ohio, of Irish heritage, it was a polluted mill town but boasted an opera house. Her mother, Julia, studied voice in London and Paris and had aspirations to have an operatic career but married at twenty-nine, then considered to be spinsterhood, to one of the most eligible bachelors in town. Olga's father's family traced their origins to 17th century England and had been Anglicans but had converted to Catholicism in Youngstown. In Olga's early childhood her mother was on tour. 

Olga didn't think of marriage as a career and hated Ohio. From an early age, perhaps influenced by her mother's attitude, despite her parents obviously traditional marriage, she had other ideas. In 1904, when she was nine, her mother sent her to boarding school in England. Olga saw the voyage and all else as a great adventure and was not resentful of being sent away to the convent. She was already learning to play the violin. In 1910 her mother moved the family to Paris and they began to vacation in Italy. Olga's was an advantaged upbringing, though the assumptions about her family's wealth was exaggerated.  Olga did need to earn a living and was able to do so as a violinist playing recitals and converts primarily in Europe.

Olga's first love began in Florence, where she fell for a young man named Egerton Grey, a friend of the family, who also lived an international life.  He went to one of Olga's concerts and then began to pursue her with romantic ardor but after he married and then annulled his marriage, she was left conflicted. Egerton was slow to give up on marrying Olga.

In 1910 Olga's mother decided it was time to send her to the Paris Conservatoire to study under Maestro Leon Carambat who was the 1st violinist at the Opera Comique. She moved the family - sans her husband who remained doing business -  into an exclusive and beautiful six story apartment building.  It could be said that Olga's had the perfect mother for her own aspirations.  Julia Rudge was perceptive, she honored her daughter's talent and sought her development as a musician, and she was a companion to her daughter who furthered their acceptance by society where important patrons could afford to support the arts and the artist. Olga started performing at afternoon teas, gaining experience in front of small audiences, and the patronage of important hostesses.   

Ezra Pound was married to Dorothy Shakespear, and English woman who was reportedly austere.  In January 1921, Ezra and Dorothy were living in Paris, though they also traveled to and lived in London and would move to Italy. Though he was 36, he and his wife rented and lived humbly, almost impoverished, on stipends from his publications, his wife's money, and contributions from his parents. Ezra had respect as a poet, musician, and all around creative.  American ex-patriots writer Ernest Hemingway and his then wife were visitors, the influential Gertrude Stein (who also ran a salon) was negative, but Ezra Pound was welcomed and admired at Barney's.  He and Barney had been writing to each other about literature and poetry for over a decade. Ezra wrote the score for an opera, his contribution to the new music trends of Paris just as there were new poetic rhythms. He was a pianist and also played drums. Olga was a violinist of talent and skill and her work in the new music of Paris in the 1920's composed by another American ex-patriot, George Antheil, was remarkable.

Pound met many important and famous artists and writers at the Barney salon. He had long been seen socializing around town without his wife and what must be assumed is that she was dedicated to their marriage but left alone quite a bit. They were childless when Ezra met Olga and there was speculation that Dorothy had never warmed up to sex. 

Ezra and Olga began a correspondence in 1923, which is known, but exactly when and how their love first bloomed or they began to have a sexual relationship or if continued one, or for how long is not. The evidence of it is the birth of their only child, Mary. (Mary de Rachewiltz was her married name.)

Please check in again here at Mistress Manifesto as I continue the story of Ezra Pound and Olga Rudge!  Can you understand their unconventional love?  

Here is a question I have, which ties into our exploration of defining Mistress. I've heard of this relationship called a 'menage a trois' but I think that is incorrect, unless there is evidence that Dorothy and Ezra and Olga went around together, and perhaps included sexuality in the relationship.  Yes, at one point the three of them lived uncomfortably together, but only out of necessity.

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The introduction of this book mentioned the names of people who have already appeared here at Mistress Manifesto. I just knew this was my kind of book, and the kind of book that my loyal readers would want to read. If any of the books I've read and featured here at Mistress Manifesto appeal to you, please do the authors the honor and get a copy!

These archived subjects may be of interest to you. Living in Italy, Olga Rudge played her violin for Mussolini.  At Barney's salon, Mata Hari was one of the people she socialized with.  Isadora Duncan was a contemporary in Paris who mixed with some of the same artists.

November 2014
MATA HARI

Tantalizing Courtesan and Spy Who Got the Death Penalty

September 2015
NATALIE CLIFFORD BARNEY : Lesbian in Paris who Kept Other Women

You might also be interested in: 

February 2016

ISADORA DUNCAN

Mother of Modern Dance and Mistress of Paris Singer; She Did Positive Affirmations to Attract a Wealthy Patron

March  2011   

CLARETTA PETACCI

Mistress who Died By Hanging With Her Man, Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini