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The marvelous maidens of Maud
It would be fascinating to find out what percentage of Uxbridge citizens over the age of 12 have read one of Canada’s most celebrated novels, Anne of Green Gables. Those who haven’t should put it on their must-do list, because approaching it for the first time, as our curmudgeonly reporter Roger Varley did only a couple of years ago, is a treat for anyone with a love of words.
But whatever the percentage of locals who’ve read it, we think it’s a very safe bet that the proportion of us who know it was written by a woman who lived in Leaskdale for 15 years is much, much higher. And that is due almost entirely to the herculean efforts, over the last decade or so, of the members of the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario. Despite its name, this organization pretty much ignores the other places Maud lived in the province, and focuses almost exclusively on Leaskdale where, as you will read elsewhere in this issue, and regularly in Barb Pratt’s column over the last couple of years, the novelist first arrived just about a century ago.
Soon after they helped commemorate the creation of Anne in 1908 (even though the first novel was the only one in the series not written in Leaskdale), the leaders of the LMMSO set three goals for themselves - the full restoration of the Leaskdale Manse, the burning of the mortgage on the Historic Leaskdale Church (where Maud’s husband was the pastor), and the celebration of Maud’s Leaskdale centennial with a major academic and artistic conference - all of them to converge insanely on the same magic weekend of October 13-16, 2011.
That weekend has finally arrived, and the trio of dreams has, through blood, sweat and tears, come triumphantly true. The mortgage on the church has been paid, with a few thousand to spare! The manse has, with the assistance of Parks Canada and many other donors and volunteers (not to mention the great documentary photography of Maud herself), been beautifully restored to the early years of Montgomery’s residence there. And the conference, attended by LMM devotees from around the world, will fully explore, on the page, podium and stage, the fascinating career of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the role her Leaskdale years played in her development as writer, wife, mother and citizen of the world.
If you see women around town this weekend with exhausted but exhilarated faces, chances are they’re with the LMMSO. Give them a cheer, buy them a drink - they deserve all that and more. They set themselves an almost impossible goal, but like Maud’s heroines, they dared to dream, and then worked like devils to make the dream come true.
Once they’ve collected the plaudits and taken a deep breath, they will sit down - at least most of them will - to plot the next step: how to convert the Leaskdale site, now that it’s ready, into a major tourist destination, on a par with Cavendish and Charlottetown. It can be done, and if anyone can do it, you can bet on the amazing women of the LMMSO. We look forward to the adventure.
July 14, 2011
