Jordan, Viola Baxter, 1887-1973

Dates

• Existence: 1887 - 1973

Biography

Viola Scott Baxter was born on March 15, 1887 in Utica, New York. In 1905 her mother urged her to attend a dance at Hamilton College, suggesting that she "might meet her Prince Charming." At that dance, the eighteen year old Viola was introduced to Ezra Pound and began a fifty-year friendship with him, mostly conducted via correspondence. Pound, in turn, introduced her to his former sweetheart Hilda Doolittle, and later to the poet William Carlos Williams, whom she dated for a time in 1907-08 and who also became a lifelong friend and correspondent.

Viola, who did not attend college, married the political economist Virgil Jordan in Utica in September 1914. The couple had three children, but were divorced in the mid-1920s. Viola received a small amount of alimony and child support and raised the children in Tenafly, New Jersey. She continued her correspondences with her old friends, reporting to H.D. and Pound about her occasional visits with the Williams family and sending them news of political events and popular culture, astrological speculations, and pointed comments on her daily life as a suburban housewife. Pound stayed at her home for two weeks during his visit to the U.S. in 1939, confiding in her about his domestic situation and showing her photographs of Mary, his daughter by the violinist Olga Rudge.

While Viola was completely cut off from contact with Pound after the American declaration of war on Italy in 1941, she remained in close touch with H.D. and her companion Bryher. In addition to sending them news about their friends in the U.S., she frequently sent cigarettes, stockings, and other small luxuries that were difficult to obtain during the war in Britain.

Although she disapproved of Pound's politics, she was dismayed to learn of his indictment for treason and his confinement at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, and wrote to him affectionately throughout his years there, sending him many packages of baked goods, jam, and candy. She and her children visited Pound and his wife Dorothy during the 1950s.

Severe arthritis and general ill-health curtailed her ability to correspond in her later years, and she lived quietly with her daughter Barbara in Harrington Park, New Jersey, where she died on November 26, 1973.