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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On its recent unveiling of the 2024 $1 commemorative circulation coin celebrating the 150th anniversary of L.M. Montgomery’s birth, the Royal Canadian Mint wrote that Montgomery is “one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors” and “has influenced culture and literature internationally.” The coin captures the “big feelings and imagination” of Anne of Green Gables and “the same deep love for Prince Edward Island as her creator.” The four tributes from this week – from Evelyn White, Brenton Dickieson, Earle Lockerby, and Marah Gubar – attest that Montgomery and PEI are inextricably linked in the imaginations of those who grew up on the Island, have visited the Island, or dream of visiting the Island.
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Evelyn White on Aretha Franklin’s wish to visit PEI
As a lifelong fan of Aretha Franklin, I was stunned to read her exchange with a Toronto Star reporter, in 2014. “I love Anne of Green Gables,” she said. “That's one of my favourite things. She’s such a can-do kind of girl, that's why I'm crazy about her. And that Gilbert Blythe? He's a charmer. And Marilla, a lady who knows just how she wants things to go. Oh yes, I think I can appreciate that as well. I just think I’d like to see the place they all came from.”
Unfortunately, the Queen of Soul (1942-2018) never made it to Prince Edward Island. So, I've been delighted to spread the word about Franklin's love of Montgomery’s novel and was overjoyed to discover her quote in a display at Green Gables Heritage Place on PEI.
A former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Evelyn C. White is the author of Alice Walker: A Life.
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Brenton Dickieson on Montgomery’s PEI haunts
There was nothing legendary about my childhood 4H meetings in the Cavendish United Church basement. When we crept down the road for a sacrilegious game of “Ghost in the Graveyard,” though, I entered an L.M. Montgomery space. Her haunted woods hedged the cemetery in, and through them, the “Anne House.” I first read Montgomery’s gravestone as I crouched in the dark, waiting for the tendrils of frosty breath to give me away.
Montgomery’s everyday sacred spaces have marked me more than her international legacy. Her husband’s pulpit was where I first spoke in public – a red-faced schoolboy squeezed into a hand-me-down suit. In a much bigger suit, I performed a wedding there. Too soon after, a funeral. These are my subtle ghosts.
So, when there, I try to divine Montgomery at the organ, in the pew, christening children, burying loved ones. I want to visit these unknowable moments because the haunts of worship, community, love, and loss inhabit her stories.
Brenton Dickieson is a writer, researcher, MaudCast host, and teacher originally from New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island. His research considers how the creation of storied worlds contributes to conversations about spirituality, theology, and cultural criticism. He has been teaching at UPEI since 2006.
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Earle Lockerby on pilgrimages
I feel a kinship with Maud. Not a kindred spirit, mind you, but nevertheless a kinship. It is a kinship in which PEI and Ontario are linked. Like Montgomery, I moved away from the Island and I now live a ten-minute drive from the Leaskdale Manse. A few days ago, as I descended the staircase of the Manse, my hand lingered on the newel cap which her hand had grasped countless times.
I have, as did Maud, one leg in PEI and the other in Ontario. We left the Island, but the Island did not leave us. We passionately retained our love for “home” and made fond pilgrimages to the red soil, the verdant fields, and the glimmering blue Gulf. One day, I will return to my beloved Island for the last time. Only a few miles from Maud and like her, I will savour the sounds of the murmuring Gulf for an eternity.
You showed the way, Maud – Happy 150th Birthday!
Earle Lockerby is a member and active volunteer with the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario. He has written several books on Island history and contributed numerous articles to The Island Magazine and various peer-reviewed academic journals. His maternal grandmother and her siblings (the Howatts of French River) were in Montgomery’s social circle, as reflected in her journals.
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Marah Gubar on communing with nature
One of the many things I love about Montgomery’s books is that different parts of them speak to us at different times in our lives. When I was growing up and reading the Anne and Emily books over and over again, I would skim or skip Montgomery’s scenic descriptions, because I was not into nature as a young person. But now that I am older – and have grown more appreciative of both nature and nature writing – those passages compel my attention. And when I finally set foot in PEI to attend an LMMI conference, I had two magical moments. First, walking along the lushly green paths that inspired the ones depicted in Anne of Green Gables moved me to tears. And then, witnessing a fiery orange-and-yellow sunset over the water behind a lighthouse made me vow to return to PEI in the future to commune with the nature Montgomery loved.
Dr. Marah Gubar is an Associate Professor in Comparative Media Studies/Writing and Women’s and Gender Studies at MIT.
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Next week’s tributes are from writers inspired by Montgomery.