In the Spotlight: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Always called "Maud" by family and friends) and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables.

November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942

One of Canada's most cherished authors, Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874 in Clifton, Prince Edward Island. She was the daughter of Hugh John Montgomery and Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery.

Shortly after giving birth Maud's mother was stricken with tuberculosis. As her condition worsened Hugh John moved the family back to Cavendish, to the home of his in-laws where his mother-in-law could help tend his wife and child. The Macneill's ran the local post office out of their house and helped care for their sick daughter and infant child. Clara succumbed to the illness on September 14, 1876 at the age of twenty-three, Maud was not yet two years old. Year's later Maud would speak of remembering her mother's wake and how she reached down and felt the coldness of her mother's cheek.

After his wife died, Hugh John sold his business and spent most of his time traveling. In 1884 he moved to Saskatchewan, leaving ten year old Maud in the care of her grandparents, Lucy and Alexander Macneill. Hugh John married Mary Anne McCrae in 1887 when Maud was thirteen. Growing up under an atmosphere of strict rules and discipline by her elderly grandparents, Maud became an avid reader and began to write.

In 1889, at the age of fifteen Maud went to live with her father, stepmother and their two small children. It was a hard time for Maude, a new home, unable to get along with her new stepmother and giving up her schooling in order to care for her new siblings. It was during this time in Saskatchewan that she sent a poem to the Daily Patriot, a local newspaper. Her first published piece was On Cape Le Force . After a year with her father, homesickness caused Maud to return to Prince Edward Island and her grandparents.


In 1895, qualifying for her teacher's license at Prince Wales College, Maud began teaching at Bideford. Returning to Cavendish in 1898 due to the death of her grandfather, Maud once again helped run the post office. She stayed there until 1901 when one of her cousins agreed to stay with her elderly grandmother and to help in the post office. This gave Maud the chance to pursue a career as editor and proofreader of the society page at the Halifax Echo. Maud was truly happy until June of 1902 when she had to return to Cavendish due to the discontent between her grandmother and cousin. Continuing her writing she had submitted Anne of Green Gables to four publishers and by 1904 all four had rejected her. Putting it aside in a hatbox, she continued writing articles and poetry.

Reverend Ewen MacDonald became the minister of the local Presbyterian Church in 1903. Ewen and Maud became close and in 1906 she agreed to marry him under the condition that they wait until after her grandmothers death. On June 20, 1908, at the age of thirty-four, Maud received a copy from her publisher of her first book, Anne of Green Gables .

Two years later, after the death of her grandmother in March, Maud was married to Reverend Ewen MacDonald on June 11, 1911, they had three children: Chester (1912), Hugh (stillborn in 1914), and Stuart (1915). Even though she was now successful with her writing, this did not mean an easy life for Maud. She was devastated over the death of her stillborn son, battles with her publishing company due to their withholding of royalties and reprint rights. Her husband suffered from mental relapse and had bouts of melancholia, which forced him to leave the ministry in 1935. During the late 1930's Maud suffered a mental breakdown and remained despondent until her death.

Lucy Maud Montgomery MacDonald died in Toronto, Ontario, on April 24, 1942, at the age of sixty-eight. In death, she was able to return to her beloved Prince Edward Island, buried in the Cavendish cemetery.

In addition to the well-known Anne of Green Gables and its six sequels, she produced more than twenty novels and short stories. Montgomery published only one volume of collected poems, The Watchman and Other Poems , in 1916. She also produced three of the miniature biographies in a volume called Courageous Women (1934). At her death she was working on another Anne book, which was much altered and published by her son as a collection of short stories called The Road to Yesterday (1974). She produced some one million words in her private journals, between 1889 and 1942, and requested in her will that these journals be preserved and published. Publication began on these in 1985.

Novels
1908 - Anne of Green Gables
1909 - Anne of Avonlea
1910 - Kilmeny of the Orchard
1911 - The Story Girl
1913 - The Golden Road (sequel to The Story Girl)
1915 - Anne of the Island
1917 - Anne's House of Dreams
1919 - Rainbow Valley
1920 - Rilla of Ingleside
1923 - Emily of New Moon
1925 - Emily Climbs
1926 - The Blue Castle
1927 - Emily's Quest
1929 - Magic for Marigold
1931 - A Tangled Web
1933 - Pat of Silver Bush
1935 - Mistress Pat (sequel to Pat of Silver Bush)
1936 - Anne of Windy Poplars
1937 - Jane of Lantern Hill
1939 - Anne of Ingleside

Short story collections
1912 - Chronicles of Avonlea
1920 - Further Chronicles of Avonlea
1974 - The Road to Yesterday
1979 - The Doctor's Sweetheart
1988 - Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans
1989 - Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea
1990 - Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side
1991 - After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed
1993 - Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement
1994 - At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales
1995 - Across the Miles: Tales of Correspondence
1995 - Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories

Poetry
1916 - The Watchman & Other Poems
1987 - The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery

Non-fiction-
1934 - Courageous Women (with Marian Keith and Mabel Burns McKinley




-----------Poetry Corner-----------------


Come, Rest Awhile


Come, rest awhile, and let us idly stray
In glimmering valleys, cool and far away.

Come from the greedy mart, the troubled street,
And listen to the music, faint and sweet,

That echoes ever to a listening ear,
Unheard by those who will not pause to hear­

The wayward chimes of memory's pensive bells,
Wind-blown o'er misty hills and curtained dells.

One step aside and dewy buds unclose
The sweetness of the violet and the rose;

Song and romance still linger in the green,
Emblossomed ways by you so seldom seen,

And near at hand, would you but see them, lie
All lovely things beloved in days gone by.

You have forgotten what it is to smile
In your too busy life­come, rest awhile.



With Tears They Buried You Today


With tears they buried you to-day,
But well I knew no turf could hold
Your gladness long beneath the mould,
Or cramp your laughter in the clay;
I smiled while others wept for you
Because I knew.

And now you sit with me to-night
Here in our old, accustomed place;
Tender and mirthful is your face,
Your eyes with starry joy are bright­
Oh, you are merry as a song
For love is strong!

They think of you as lying there
Down in the churchyard grim and old;
They think of you as mute and cold,
A wan, white thing that once was fair,
With dim, sealed eyes that never may
Look on the day.

But love cannot be coffined so
In clod and darkness; it must rise
And seek its own in radiant guise,
With immortality aglow,
Making of death's triumphant sting
A little thing.

Ay, we shall laugh at those who deem
Our hearts are sundered! Listen, sweet,
The tripping of the wind's swift feet
Along the by-ways of our dream,
And hark the whisper of the rose
Wilding that blows.

Oh, still you love those simple things,
And still you love them more with me;
The grave has won no victory;
It could not clasp your shining wings,
It could not keep you from my side,
Dear and my bride!



To My Enemy


Let those who will of friendship sing,
And to its guerdon grateful be,
But I a lyric garland bring
To crown thee, O, mine enemy!

Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe
For that my lifelong journey through
Thine honest hate has done for me
What love perchance had failed to do.

I had not scaled such weary heights
But that I held thy scorn in fear,
And never keenest lure might match
The subtle goading of thy sneer.

Thine anger struck from me a fire
That purged all dull content away,
Our mortal strife to me has been
Unflagging spur from day to day.

And thus, while all the world may laud
The gifts of love and loyalty,
I lay my meed of gratitude
Before thy feet, mine enemy!