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- This
column by John Cosway is a mix of 50 years of media memories
and 15 years of buying and selling experiences via live and online
auctions, flea markets, antique stores and markets etc.
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- Cosway's Corner -
Celebrating 100 years of Anne Shirley
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- Anne of Green Gables - a century old,
but forever young
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- By John Cosway
- Numerous milestones will be marked in Canada this year, including
the granddaddy of them all - the 400th anniversary of the founding
of Quebec City in July.
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- Special events to celebrate the July 3, 1608, founding of
the historic city by Samuel de Champlain will keep the locals
and tourists in a festive mood through October.
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- Another 2008 milestone, dear to the hearts of Canadians and
book readers everywhere, is June's 100th anniversary of Lucy
Maud Montgomery's first novel, Anne of Green Gables.
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- A pup in comparison to Quebec City, but nonetheless a red-carpet
event.
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- Although Montgomery was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island,
on Nov. 30, 1874, Canadians in Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and
Ontario also feel a direct kinship, her having lived in those
provinces during her 67 prolific years.
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- The Internet has a wealth of information for Montgomery fans,
with just about every detail of her eventful life preserved with
great affection.
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- In brief, her mother, Clara Macneill Montgomery, died
of tuberculosis when she was two; her father, Hugh John Montgomery,
left her in the care of aging maternal grandparents in Cavendish,
PEI, and moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; she joined her
father and his new bride at 15, but returned to PEI two years
later to attend teachers' college.
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- Suffice to say, many of her childhood experiences contributed
to the depth of characters in her 22 novels, especially the ageless
Anne Shirley of Green Gables.
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 Montgomery was 33
and still single on June 20, 1908 - the day the publisher gave
her a first copy of the 429-page Anne of Green Gables. Her poems
and articles had been published, but a book is every writer's
dream.
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- Within five months and seven printings, Anne of Green Gables
sold 19,000 copies and Mark Twain was among the many instant
fans. Anne Shirley captivated readers in 1908 and remains a role
model for young girls everywhere a century later.
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- Montgomery's worldwide fame - thanks to translations of her
books in numerous languages, stage plays, musicals, TV series
and movies - earned her numerous honours, including the Order
of the British Empire, awarded by King George V in 1935.
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- On April 24, 1942, when her heart gave out in Toronto at
age 67, her literary legacy included 22 published novels, hundreds
of poems and hundreds of short stories.
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- A year after her burial in Cavendish, PEI, on a hill overlooking
Green Gables, the Canadian government declared Montgomery a person
of national historic significance. That significance has not
ebbed one iota. This year, it is stronger than ever.
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- The red carpet is being rolled out and it is expected to
be a banner year for sales of Anne of Green Gables books, dolls,
videos, coins, stamps and other memorabilia.
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- In June, Canada Post will release two commemorative stamps
to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables and
the Royal Canadian Mint recently released a commemorative 2008
25-cent coloured Anne of Green Gables coin.
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- The much anticipated three-hour CTV movie, Anne of Green
Gables: A New Beginning, starring Shirley MacLaine, Barbara
Hershey and Toronto's Hannah Endicott-Douglas, is
in post-production. A release date is pending.
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- Memories of Maud will be particularly strong in PEI, where
she was born; in Nova Scotia, where she was educated; in Alberta,
where she lived for two years with her father and stepmother,
and in Ontario, where she lived the final 31 years of her life.
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- While PEI's focus is on Clifton, her birthplace, and Cavendish,
her resting place, Montgomery's presence in Ontario is being
celebrated in a variety of ways in communities she called home
between 1911 and 1942 - Leaskdale, Norval and
- Toronto.
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- Leaskdale/Uxbridge: 1911-1926
Married on July 11, 1911, Ewan and Maud honeymooned in Scotland
before settling in Leaskdale, a small village near Uxbridge,
where the reverend had taken charge of St. Paul's Presbyterian
Church a year earlier. They lived in the church manse.
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- Exhibits in the Lucy Maud Montgomery Leaskdale Manse Museum
today tell the story of Montgomery's life in the community, teaching
Sunday school and Young Peoples classes, community work, writing
11 novels and becoming a mother.
Montgomery gave birth to three sons here: Chester Cameron (1912-1964),
Hugh Alexander (died at birth in 1914) and Ewan Stuart (1915-1982).
Baby Hugh is buried in Foster Memorial Cemetery, 2 km from the
manse.
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- The stuccoed, 1 ½-story 1886 brick manse they called
home for 15 years before moving to Norval has been an Ontario
Historic Site since 1965 and a provincial museum and National
Historic Site since 1997.
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- The Lucy Maud Montgomery Society - www.lucymaudmontgomery.ca
- is restoring the manse to its 1920s décor in a major
renovation project. Donations are always appreciated.
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Other Leaskdale/Uxbridge points of interest
- The Road to Avonlea television series was filmed at the former
farm of Robert Nesbitt on 6th Concession, Uxbridge. The
house and barn still stand, but the movie set was demolished
in 1996.
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- - Pine Grove United Church on 7th Concession was seen in
several of the 91 Road to Avonlea episodes, including the 1996
finale that capped the seven-year CBC run.
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- - The Uxbridge Historical Society is housed in St. Paul's
Presbyterian Church in Zephyr, where Ewan also served.
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- Special events:
May 10 - Second annual restoration fundraising antiques
festival at the manse;
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- June 14 - 100 Years of Anne Festival (Uxbridge);
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- June 20 - An Evening With Don Harron - The
Story of the Musical Anne of Green Gables;
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- October 18 - Lucy Maud Montgomery Day in the Historic
Leaskdale Church.
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- Norval: 1926-1935
 In February
of 1926, Rev. Macdonald was appointed to the Presbyterian Church
in Norval. Maud quickly adapted, resuming church and community
work, playing the organ, directing plays, tending to family and
garden - and penning another five novels.
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- Maud's nine years in the Credit Valley community are memorialized
in the Lucy Maud Montgomery Memorial Garden, just off Hwy. 7.
The Norval Women's Institute, of which she was a former director
and speaker, enhanced the garden in 2006 to mark the institute's
100th anniversary.
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- The garden includes flowers Montgomery would have planted
and quotes from her works on gazebo plaques and a memorial rock.
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- Printable Norval walking maps are available at www.norval.ca/tour.htm
and more information about her Norval years is at www.lmmontgomerynorval.ca
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- Also of interest, local author Deborah Quaile has
a new 208-page book, L.M. Montgomery: The Norval Years, 1926-1935,
on the bookshelves.
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- Toronto: 1935-1942
When Maud and her family moved into 210 Riverside Drive in 1935,
she prophetically dubbed it Journey's End. She died there in
1942 and Ewan died a year later.
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- The house, on the Humber River in the former Village of Swansea,
is where Maud wrote her final three novels: Anne of Windy Poplars
(1936), Jane of Lantern Hill (1937) and Anne of Ingleside (1939).
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- The house, with an historic plaque attached, can be viewed
on foot or bike on your own or during two-hour bike and walking
tours. Visit www.torontowalksbikes.com
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- Toronto's pride in Lucy Maud Montgomery is also reflected
in the naming of a public school and YMCA Child Care centre in
Scarborough.
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- Special events:
Ryerson University's new Anne of Green Gables tribute web site
is at www.ryerson.ca/nlc/anne;
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- Aug. 15 to Sept. 1 - The CNE will include a salute
to Montgomery;
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- Through Sept. 28 - An exhibit at the Spadina Museum:
Historic House and Gardens, 285 Spadina Road, called Anne of
Green Gables: A Canadian Icon at 100;
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- Sept. 25 - A free 8 p.m. guest lecture at the Toronto
Public Library, Lillian H. Smith Branch, College Street, by Dr.
Mary Rubio, Montgomery's official biographer titled On Writing
the Life of Lucy Maud Montgomery.
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- It is an eventful year for all things Maud.
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