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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October 18th is Persons Day in Canada, marking the day when in 1929 “the historic decision to include women in the legal definition of ‘persons’ was handed down by Canada’s highest court of appeal,” which “paved the way for women's increased participation in public and political life.” To celebrate Canada’s Persons Day, this week’s tributes from Sabrina Mark, Julia Purcell, and Caeley Currie pay tribute to Montgomery and her characters as strong activist women.
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Sabrina Mark inspired by the public roles of Montgomery’s female characters
“Says Woman’s Place Is Home,” blares the headline. I’m looking at L.M. Montgomery’s scrapbooks at the University of Guelph. But reading the article, I see that the headline is somewhat misleading; Montgomery asserts her belief that women should have the vote even while she makes the headline’s claim. As I continue paging through the scrapbooks, I’m delighted to find that Montgomery has kept her voter card from the first time she voted. Montgomery’s interest in women’s rights was often understated by the media, especially compared to coverage of her feminist contemporaries. But Montgomery’s thoughts and opinions were more complex, mixed, ambivalent, and ambiguous than can be contained in any simple headline. It was this fascinating quality that kept me going back to her writing in my academic work exploring the public roles of girls and women. I am always finding new and intriguing facets to her female characters.
Sabrina Mark is an independent scholar and lifelong reader of L.M. Montgomery.
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Julia Purcell on Montgomery as a Role Model
I admire how Montgomery stayed true to her determination to write and to become a published author. With the artist’s eye, she wrote with insight and poignancy and humour. She is a role model.
Like a fairy tale, Montgomery’s own story began with the death of her young mother, subsequent abandonment by her handsome father, a lonely childhood raised by unsympathetic grandparents, and even a selfish stepmother. Plus, numerous suitors desperate to marry her and distract her from her quest of becoming a writer. And even a villain in the form of a dishonest publisher.
In spite of them all, she learned to battle opposition and distraction and ultimately harnessed and transfigured her own story into fiction. Her unique mix of intelligence and imagination carried her forward to higher education, employment, and a successful writing career and through a challenging married life with children.
Readers from around the world still read and share her books. They may not always know that, when they read her stories, they are reading about Montgomery herself. But I like to imagine that is how Maud would have wanted it anyway.
Julia Purcell is a professional painter, printmaker, amateur musician, elected municipal official, mother of four children, and wife.
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Caeley Currie on being inspired by Montgomery’s passion and enthusiasm
Today, I’m lucky to be following my dream of being a museum and heritage professional. I have the privilege of preserving precious stories and objects from the past. However, when I first set out on this path I was discouraged and looked down on by people who didn’t understand the value of my profession. L.M. Montgomery told me, through her whimsical characters, that my dreams and goals were valid, even if they didn’t look like those of other people. I owe everything to women like Montgomery who urged me to identify what my passions were and chase them with unrelenting enthusiasm.
Caeley Currie is the Museum Operations Manager at the Bedeque Area Historical Museum, which manages the Lower Bedeque schoolhouse where Montgomery taught in 1897-98. Caeley was Montgomery, the teacher, in summer 2024 for the special Montgomery 150 event, “A Day in L.M. Montgomery’s Classroom.”
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Next week our tributes will celebrate another way that Montgomery has inspired her readers: by naming a child after her characters.