My Visit to Green Gables and Prince Edward Island
Posted on July 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm
As promised, here are two of my pictures from our visit to the home that inspired L.M. Montgomery to write Anne of Green Gables just 100 years ago. Ms. Montgomery never lived here but it belonged to a relative and she visited it often and loved it dearly.
It is easy to see why, and it is also easy to picture a red-headed, gray-eyed girl with a large imagination sleeping in this room.
It sounds like you had a good trip! It is indeed a beautiful house, especially in summer. I don’t think I have seen a winter photo – life is a bit harsh there in the snow and blow of winter.
I’ve been to PEI once. It was in very early spring and it’s totally different–I’m sure the view is better in the spring/summer/early-fall.
Speaking of “my home and native land,” happy Canada Day! Canada turns a hundred and forty-one today.
Happy Canada Day indeed! I wish we could have stayed for the celebrations. We had a great week in Nova Scotia and Quebec and very much enjoyed the gorgeous scenery and friendly people.
I am so envious. It is my dream to go there one day. Thanks for reminding me that it is my dream to go there.
Sometimes I think of myself as a case of delayed development; my favorite books have remained a girlish litany of classic child and adolescent works of fiction: Little Women, A Wrinkle in Time, To Kill A Mockingbird, and of course, Anne of Green Gables, and its progeny. Each central character added to MY character, and Anne, dear Anne–is very likely a powerful antecedent to my life as an editor. Her insistence on the final “e” in “Anne” was singular and enduring, and reminds us that our name is one of our most precious possessions and simply MUST be spelled correctly. But more importantly, she reminds us, as do all those heroines and the authors who created them, that words matter and, I fervently hope, will continue to matter. Thank you, dear Nell, for keeping that conversation alive in your reviews, and columns, and life.
Thank you Deborah. I remember going straight down that shelf L.M. Montgomery shelf in the Central School library and reading all the Anne books, utterly enchanted. It is not at all delayed development to continue to connect and be inspired by the eternal themes and endearing characters of those classics. I still re-read Little Women every few years. I was interested to learn more about Montgomery when we visited Green Gables, which has a special 100th anniversary display. She was herself a virtual orphan. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father left her with her stern grandparents and barely ever saw her again. She created in Marilla and Matthew the family she wished she could have had — people with the ability to warm to her passionate and imaginative nature. Yes, words matter, and stories they tell us matter even more.