Lucy Maud Montgomery as a Child

Lucy Maud Montgomery  |  As a Child  |  As a Homemaker  |  As a Writer & Author  |  Lucy Maud & Mental Health

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life was marked by difficulties and triumphs, greatly influencing her as a person and writer. She was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, on November 30, 1874, to parents Hugh Montgomery and Clara Macneill. Tragically, her mother died of tuberculosis when Maud was just 21 months old. Her father, ill-prepared to look after Maud while he sought to earn a living, arranged to have her live with her maternal grandparents, Alexander and Lucy Macneill. Ultimately, he moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, leaving Maud behind with her grandparents.

By all reports, her grandparents did not lavish young Maud with affection. While not unkind, her grandfather was stern, judgemental, and impatient, and her grandmother, while reserved, did teach her discipline and self-control.  Maud was an intelligent yet sensitive child who yearned for affection. From these descriptions, it is easy to see the parallels between Maud and that young orphan girl, Anne Shirley. At the end of Chapter III in Anne of Green Gable, it is poignant to read Maud’s words. To set the scene, it was the end of Anne’s arrival day, and it had become apparent that the elderly Cuthbert siblings weren’t very keen on her – they had asked for a boy.

 

“To bed went Matthew. And to bed, when she had put her dishes away, went Marilla, frowning most resolutely.  And upstairs, in the east gable, a lonely, heart-hungry, friendless child cried herself to sleep.” 

~ Anne of Green Gables – by L.M. Montgomery ~

 

Growing up on the picturesque landscapes of Prince Edward Island, Montgomery found solace in nature, which allowed her to appreciate the island’s beauty and inspired her writing. At a young age, she discovered her gift of words and used them to write stories: biographies of her cats, special haunts, and poems dedicated to her favourite trees. Paper was scarce in those days, but she found scraps in her grandparent’s kitchen – which happened to be the village post office. She would write words on every square inch of those pieces of paper and then make a little book by sewing the scraps together with thread. This was the start of Maud’s journalling habit. It began at age fourteen and continued for the rest of her life.

Young Maud had a great imagination, creating imaginary worlds and characters such as “Katie Maurice” and “Lucy Gray,” who helped her escape the challenges of her reality. She enjoyed listening to stories; her grandfather was known to be an excellent storyteller, but she especially loved reading. Books were not plentiful in her grandparents’ home, so she read and re-read what they had. All of this laid the foundation for her future as a prolific author.

“I could read and write when I went to school. There must have been a time when I learned, as a first step into an enchanted world, that A was A; but for all the recollection I have of the process I might as well have been born with a capacity for reading, as we are for breathing and eating.

~ The Alpine Path by L.M. Montgomery ~

Captivated by the stories and poems in Godey’s Lady’s Book, a magazine her grandmother subscribed to, adolescent Maud started writing poems and verses and submitting them to magazines and newspapers. While most were rejected, never to appear in print, Maud was not deterred and continued to write. This early experience marked the beginning of her literary career and taught her a valuable lesson at a very early age: “Never give up.”

At 16, Montgomery travelled to Prince Albert to spend a year with her father, whom she had not seen in nearly five years.  Her father had remarried, and Maud developed a strained relationship with her stepmother.  For most of Maud’s life, she and her father lived apart, yet despite that, she treasured him, especially when he called her “Maudie.”  She would blossom in his presence and in the presence of those who similarly favoured and encouraged her.  Most of her school teachers had this same effect on Maud, notably Miss Hattie Gordon, which ultimately prompted her to pursue higher education.  At 19, she attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown and obtained her teaching certificate.

After teaching for one year, Maud moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she attended Dalhousie University. While lack of finances ended Montgomery’s college days prematurely, during that time, she had continued to hone her craft by writing more poems, verses, and stories, which were now being accepted and printed in newspapers and magazines.  At 22, Maud returned to PEI and taught school in Lower Bedeque before returning to Cavendish to look after her aging grandmother, Lucy Macneill.  Overall, her experiences with her grandparents, her relationship with her father, and the many observations of human nature from within her close-knit community laid the foundation for Maud to skillfully weave her words into the tapestry of her novels.

 

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”

~ Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery ~