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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This week’s tributes from Laurie Brinklow, Maureen Duffy, Gayle, Barbara Helander, and Juanita Rossiter speak to the various ways that the magnetism of Montgomery’s Prince Edward Island has drawn them to and back to the island.
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Laurie Brinklow learns that there is more to PEI than potatoes
Like so many other Canadian girls of my generation, I fell in love with Anne at age ten. I went on to read all the Anne novels, and in Grade 8, I even dressed up and pretended to be L.M. Montgomery for a class assignment: an interview with my favourite author. Growing up in British Columbia, I remember my Grade 10 history teacher telling us about Prince Edward Island: it was famous for potatoes and Anne of Green Gables. And everyone's last name was Campbell. (Boy, was he wrong! They are outnumbered by the MacDonalds, Arsenaults, and Gallants!) When I washed up on PEI's shores in 1983, I had to pinch myself that I was actually living on Prince Edward Island. Taking an English class at UPEI, I wrote a paper on “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman” about Emily Starr. She became my new hero. The more heroes a writer girl has, the better.
Dr. Laurie Brinklow is a poet and professor of Island Studies who lives in Charlottetown.
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Maureen Duffy hears Montgomery’s voice everywhere on the island
The world of Lucy Maud has left no part of Prince Edward Island untouched. Her voice whispers in the reeds of the ponds, whistles through the cherry trees, and hovers under the clouds at dusk. It has been my honour and absolute pleasure to bring the spirit of Lucy Maud – and her fictional princess, Anne – to younger readers in A is for Anne as they delve into the breath of Lucy Maud. Stories to be told and retold by the cultural keepers of this generation, the next, and the next.
Maureen Duffy is co-founder and editorial director of Pownal Street Press and author of A is for Anne.
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Gayle’s DNA brought her back to the island
I have always felt a connection to Anne of Green Gables. I am also adopted and reading the books by L.M. Montgomery had me feel a connection to someone else that is also adopted. I never felt different from my adoptive family. I was one of them, fitting into all that was family. In 2010, I visited the town in PEI that I hadn’t known was where my ancestors first arrived from across the pond. DNA brought my beginning story back to the island as I learned that was where I was from. Thank you L.M. Montgomery for always making me feel welcome.
Gayle is a girl loving all her family and life in Ontario.
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Barbara Helander on PEI feeling like home
I am a descendant of Daniel Green, a United Empire Loyalist who arrived on Prince Edward Island in 1783 and settled on what became known as Green’s Shore. (This settlement was later renamed Summerside.) Although I was not born on PEI, my parents were. Their life’s journey took them away from their beloved homeland, but PEI was like a magnetic force – it pulled them home every year and brought me along with it. As a result, I feel PEI is my home, too, offering me the same sort of grounding, peace, and sense of belonging. On those annual pilgrimages, L.M. Montgomery figured prominently: tours of Maud’s birthplace and the Green Gables homestead, golfing at Green Gables, attending the very first run of the Anne of Green Gables musical (and countless times since then), and catching a ride on that “new” Lucy Maud Montgomery ferry! Maud was ever present on those summertime visits - intricately woven into my love, appreciation, and memories of PEI.
Barbara is the coordinator for Kindred Spirits: The Lucy Maud Montgomery Legacy as Interpreted by Contemporary Book Artists, a book arts exhibition dedicated to the memory of L.M. Montgomery that will be travelling across Canada until the end of 2026. https://www.kindred-spirits-bookarts.com
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Juanita Rossiter on the Island as home from the other side of the world
I first crossed paths with L.M. Montgomery when my aunt purchased a paperback copy of Anne of Green Gables for me when I was eleven, and I recall reading passages to my mother out loud that struck me as hilarious. Our next intersection, also on PEI, was the summer after finishing my undergrad. I worked for the Macneills at the Cavendish Home of Montgomery, and Jennie encouraged me to read the first volume of Montgomery’s journals when I wasn’t busy. To have read that first volume of her journals where Montgomery wrote it, I now realize was a gift.
A three-year stint as an ESL teacher in Japan was where Montgomery entered my life again. Green Gables was featured in the Grade 10 textbook I used, and although many of my fellow expats at that time had never heard of PEI, ALL of the 1200 students I taught every week did. I only had to mention Akage no An and there was an instant connection that surpassed cultures and languages. Growing up on a farm in rural PEI, just like Montgomery did, I felt a sense of my Island home on the other side of the world for which I was extremely grateful.
One of my Grade 10 students drew this picture and gave it to me during my first month in Japan. I kept it on my desk in the teacher’s room for the three years I was there.
Juanita Rossiter is currently the Acting University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian at the University of Prince Edward Island’s Robertson Library.
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Next week our tributes will celebrate Montgomery and the power of books.