Bode Rita - L.M. Montgomerys rainbow valleys the Ontario years, 1911-1942

L.M. MONTGOMERYS RAINBOW VALLEYS

The Ontario Years, 19111942

Edited by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement

McGill-Queens University Press 2015

ISBN 978-0-7735-4574-8 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-7735-4575-5 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-7735-9738-9 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-0-7735-9739-6 (ePUB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2015
Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding has also been received from the Symons Trust Fund for Canadian Studies.

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

L.M. Montgomery's rainbow valleys : the Ontario years, 19111942 / edited by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-7735-4574-8 (bound).ISBN 978-0-7735-4575-5 (paperback).-
ISBN 978-0-7735-9738-9 (ePDF).ISBN 978-0-7735-9739-6 (ePUB)

1. Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud), 18741942Homes and hauntsOntario. 2. Novelists, Canadian (English)Homes and hauntsOntario. 3. Novelists, Canadian (English)20th centuryBiography. 4. Canadian fiction (English)20th centuryHistory and criticism. 5. OntarioIntellectual life20th century. I. Bode, Rita, 1950, editor II. Clement, Lesley D. (Lesley Diana), 1951, author, editor III. Title: Rainbow valleys.

To Ella, Emily, and Evie,
a new generation of Montgomery readers

RITA BODE AND LESLEY D. CLEMENT

ELIZABETH WATERSTON

MARY BETH CAVERT

MARGARET STEFFLER

LAURA M. ROBINSON

CAROLINE E. JONES

WILLIAM V. THOMPSON

MELANIE J. FISHBANE

KATHERINE CAMERON

EMILY WOSTER

NATALIE FOREST

E. HOLLY PIKE

LINDA RODENBURG

KATE SUTHERLAND

LESLEY D. CLEMENT

KATE MACDONALD BUTLER

RITA BODE AND LESLEY D. CLEMENT WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF KRISTINA ELDRIDGE AND CHLOE VERNER

Montgomerys photographs (indicated by an asterisk) are used by permission of the L.M. Montgomery Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library.

L.M. Montgomerys Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 19111942 has been a collaborative effort at every turn. From the beginnings of the project on a co-editing model, through the generous efforts of our contributors to work with us and each other, to the helpful guidance of McGill-Queens University Press, a sense of mutual support has consistently informed the creation and production of this volume.

We are grateful to the institutions and individuals who have helped to bring the chapters into their present form. Among them, we would like to mention a few specifically: Elizabeth Epperly, Benjamin Lefebvre, Jean Mitchell, and Mary Rubio for their encouragement and useful advice at various stages of the project; Christy Woster for providing the cover image of the first edition of Rainbow Valley; Sally Keefe-Cohen and the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery for their professionalism and interest; the helpful staff at the Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph, and at the Ontario Archives; the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario and its members, especially its leadership; McGill-Queens University Presss astute anonymous readers, support staff, and production team; and editor Mark Abley, from whose wisdom and intellectual generosity we have benefited greatly.

We thank the Symons Trust Fund in Canadian Studies at Trent University for their generous support of this project through an award in aid of publication.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We gratefully acknowledge this publication support.

We thank our colleagues and friends at Trent and Lakehead for their contributions to an environment that supports and stimulates intellectual endeavour. We thank other friends, some of whom are also family members, for support of various kinds. In particular, Rita thanks Brian OByrne, Adam OByrne, and Julia OByrne; Lesley thanks the Ottawa Clements as well as Julian Clement and Alexandra Clement-McNamara.

Material written by L.M. Montgomery is excerpted with the permission of Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc. L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon, The Story Girl, and Blue Castle are trademarks of Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc. and are used with permission.

Anne of Green Gables, Rainbow Valley, Rilla of Ingleside, and other indicia of Anne are trademarks and/or Canadian official marks of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority Inc. and are used with permission.

Permission for photographs from L.M. Montgomery Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library.

The interview in chapter two appears with permission of Jack Hutton, Balas Museum with Memories of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

A composite of images of Goldwin Lapp, Robert Brooks, and Morley Shier was acquired from the Uxbridge Historical Museum and provided by the Canadian Virtual War Memorial Photo Collection, Veterans Affairs Canada (Shier).

Permission from Allan McGillivray, Decades of Harvest (Uxbridge: Scott History Committee, 1986) for images of two 1895 maps of the township.

Katherine Camerons L.M.M. appears by permission of Oolichan Books.

Interviews appearing in the appendix appear with permissions of Kathy Wasylenky, Melanie Whitfield, and Tess Dempster.

L.M. MONTGOMERYS RAINBOW VALLEYS

RITA BODE AND LESLEY D. CLEMENT

On 28 January 1912, after a ten-month silence, L.M. Montgomery once again took up her journal writing. Much had changed since her last entry of Saturday, Mar. 4, 1911 Cavendish, P.E.I. Under the January date, as before, she added her place of residence. Her first comment is her response to seeing The Manse, Leaskdale, Ont. on the page before her: I look at the above entry, she writes, rather stupidly, since I have written it down. It seems unreal. The feeling of dissociation in her words conveys a profound sense of the disruption that would continue to characterize the Ontario years, from 1911 through to her death in April 1942.

Montgomery copied into her January journal entry brief passages from a notebook of occasional jottings made throughout the past strange year, but mostly, the long January account is a retrospective record of life-altering events. Not unexpectedly, she movingly recounts her grandmothers final illness, death, and funeral; perhaps more of a surprise are the muted and ambivalent words with which she describes her marriage, after a five-year-long engagement, to the Reverend Ewan Macdonald, asserting her