I just got an email from one of the grandchildren of Western pulp author Harry F. Olmsted, one of my favorite Western pulpsters. The person who got in touch with me had read something I wrote about Olmsted. I tried to respond with some restraint and decorum, but you know me . . . I probably came across as a complete fanboy. I'd love to see more of an interest in Olmsted's work. I think he was a top-notch writer.
2 comments:
I'm a big Olmsted fan myself. Maybe you can ask the grandchild how Harry was able to sell so many of his stories to Hollywood when most of his contemporaries never made a single sale. I never have been able to find an answer to that question.
I too, am a relative of Harry F. Olmsted. His father was my maternal great-grandfather, and in fact I just received a copy of his father's autobiography. His father was Frank H. (Francis Henry) Olmsted, a well-known civil engineer, city planner and hydrologist. The Getty Archives have some of his father's documents, and Harry had 5 sisters, most of whom were teachers. Frank's own mother taught Shakespeare at Northwestern U. Something seems to run in the family--I studied Art and Classical Languages (go figure!) and have been a teacher as well. Anyway, Harry, or Bart Cassidy as he chose to use at times, followed in his father's footsteps and studied Engineering, graduating but having to forgo the career for health reasons. He left for better climes and his career in the pulps was born.
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