2024 is L.M. Montgomery’s 150th birthday! The L.M. Montgomery Institute (LMMI) at the University of Prince Edward Island is celebrating with 150 tributes – celebratory statements or greetings – that reflect upon personal connections to Montgomery or on an aspect of her life, work, or legacy.
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In 2011, the United Nations proclaimed an International Day of Friendship “with the idea that friendship between peoples, countries, cultures and individuals can inspire peace efforts and build bridges between communities.” The UN website states: “Through friendship – by accumulating bonds of camaraderie and developing strong ties of trust – we can contribute to the fundamental shifts that are urgently needed to achieve lasting stability, weave a safety net that will protect us all, and generate passion for a better world where all are united for the greater good.” This week’s tributes – from Jenny Litster in Scotland, Beth Cavert in the US, Xan Du in China, and Joanne Lebold in Canada – speak to Montgomery’s contribution to these shifts as we celebrate the International Day of Friendship on July 30th.
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Jennifer Litster on friendship, fun, and much more
Scotland, May 2023; a blue sky cut on the saltire by fat white clouds. The grey remains of Castle Campbell poke out above the tree line, keeping watch over the Burns of Sorrow and Care. We’ve been taken to the Dollar Glen by fairy folk, Duncan and Morag, descendants of George Boyd Macmillan, L.M. Montgomery’s Scottish pen pal. Beth and I, old friends across the water, trace the steps Macmillan and Montgomery took through this Glen in 1911, and we laugh about ancestral halls. We feel the thrill Montgomery fans feel when another piece of the jigsaw comes together.
Prince Edward Island, June 2018; a dimly lit corridor, the waft of ageing house. Poking out from the Park Corner memorabilia, a postcard view, a blueish castle bulwarked against a grey sky, a sparse tree in its winter clothes. “Castle Campbell (from South), Dollar.” Mudlarkers at the Shining Waters, we’ve found a gem in sand we thought we’d sifted. Beth and I wonder if Maud joked with Frede about her other Campbell seat.
Park Corner, June 1994 (see above photograph); smiles on the tearoom steps. The first international L.M. Montgomery Symposium. I’m there, almost obscured by Father Bolger’s hat; it’s yellower than the sun. Beth’s head is on top of mine. We don’t know each other at all, but we know that a story has begun.
This is what L.M. Montgomery has meant to me for the past thirty years. Scotland. Connections. The weight of history. Inspiring views. Friendship. And fun.
Jennifer H. Litster’s doctoral research focused on the Scottish context of L.M. Montgomery. She lives in Edinburgh, where she takes curious travellers for walks around the Scottish capital.
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(Mary) Beth Cavert on the importance of friendship to Montgomery and her readers
I come to the Montgomery world initially as a reader and fan, then a tourist, and finally a scholar. Thirty-five years ago, I started to explore, through research, her life in the context of her friendships and relations. I wanted to illuminate another side of her life experience in contrast to the often darker and oppressing shadows that inform many of the reflections about her. Her book dedications to family and friends have fascinated me for years, and that never-ending journey continues. As a result, I have been very fortunate to enjoy a brilliant and fun community of LMM scholars/fans. Now, in social media, I also post quotes from her work, mostly about her love of nature, reaching tens of thousands of readers around the world who always respond with love. Friendship, nature, and humour: these are enduring bonds which keep me moving back and forth with Montgomery between time and place.
Mary Beth Cavert is an L.M. Montgomery scholar and LMMI Legacy Award recipient.
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Yan Du (Zoe) on forever friendships
第一次接触蒙哥马利的《绿山墙》系列大概是在我六年级的时候。在没有玩伴的日子里，安妮的故事陪伴着我，提供了一个我可以随时出入的平行宇宙。多年后，作为一个学者再次研读蒙哥马利的作品，才明白或许就是这些文字潜移默化地塑造了现在的我。其实，蒙哥马利影响的不仅仅是我一个人，而是一代又一代的读者。所以她的故事还远远没有结束，等待着下一代、再下一代的读者们继续书写。
I started reading Montgomery's Anne series when I was 12. As an only child, I identified with Anne's desire for friendship; I found in her stories a parallel universe in which I could come and go and immerse myself completely. Coming back to Montgomery’s work as a scholar after many years, I realised just how much her writings have shaped who I am today. More importantly, I believe that Montgomery's influence on my life will continue to recast itself in the lives of other readers of my generation and many more to come. In this sense, one might say that the stories she tells will never come to an end.
Yan Du (Zoe), an avid reader and writer of stories, has recently taken up a position as assistant professor in the English department at Xiamen University. She is the co-editor of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon: A Children’s Classic at 100 (U of Mississippi P, 2024).
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Joanne Lebold on the gift of friendship
Happy 150th Birthday Maud! It’s your birthday, but I am the one who receives a gift – a beautiful and continuing gift – each time I read Anne of Green Gables.
When my fifth-grade teacher read Anne of Green Gables to my class in the sixties, it was the comedic episodes of Anne dying her hair green and getting Diana drunk that made the book enticing. Throughout the decades since, as I aged and my interests changed, there was something new that appealed to me with each reading: a description of a beautiful garden as I planted one of my own, a reference to a special type of needlework as I learned to quilt, a humorous episode about Anne’s attempts in the kitchen as I also struggled in this regard, the love and bond between Anne and Marilla as I experienced those same emotions with my children and grandchild.
Above everything else, I have made dear, long-time friends because of our shared interest in Anne of Green Gables and all of your writings. What greater gift can one receive?
Thank you, Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Joanne Lebold is an independent scholar and editor of Around the Hearth: Tales of Home and Family by L.M. Montgomery.
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Next week’s tributes will celebrate National Booklovers Day.