Lucy Maud Montgomery. Discover her hidden Life in Norval

Lucy Maud Montgomery spent 9 years (1926-1935) of her life in Norval, together with her husband, the reverend at the local church.

Lucy Montgomery (1874 – 1942) was very active in Norval’s social life. She taught at the Sunday School and was a member of the Norval Choral Society, and Norval Women’s Institute. She directed and appeared in plays at St. Paul’s Anglican Church and the parish hall.

While in Norval, Montgomery published The Blue Castle, Emily’s Quest, Magic for Marigold, A Tangled Web, Pat of Silver Bush, Mistress Pat, and Courageous Women (by L.M. Montgomery with Marian Keith and M.B. McKinley)

“I love Norval as I have never loved any place save Cavendish. It is as if I had known it all my life.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery in her diary

Buses of Japanese tourists come to Norval every summer to see the manse, the church and the gardens.

Fervent fans formed a group called L.M. Montgomery Norval that organizes annual events such as Montgomery Christmas, Montgomery Festival (summer), and has rebuilt the Montgomery garden on Hwy. 7 in Norval.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

After six rejections, Lucy Maud Montgomery finally had her novel published in 1908. It was a bestseller. The book has been translated into 20 languages.
The author rewrote her own past and the childhood she longed for in the adventures of the feisty Anne character.
Montgomery dreaded writing the sequel Anne of Avonlea. She said, “I’m awfully afraid if the thing takes, they’ll want me to write her through college. The idea makes me sick. I feel like the magician in the Eastern story who became the slave of the ‘jinn’ he had conjured out of a bottle.”
Anne of Green Gables has a huge following in Japan and is part of the curriculum in many schools.
The “School of Green Gables” in Okayma, Japan instils Anne-inspired qualities in its students. Anne was a hero of the Polish resistance. During WWII, copies of Anne of Green Gables were distributed to resistance fighters to remind them of the values they were fighting for loyalty, family, selflessness.

Montgomery Norval museum project

The L.M. Montgomery Heritage Society in Halton Hills purchased the manse where the Montgomery once lived, to build a museum and a literary center commemorating the famous writer.

Members of Globe and the Montgomery Norval group participated in a promotional video to raise awareness for the Norval manse project. Here are photos from that day.

Lucy Maud Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables. The musical.

Lucy M. Montgomery staged a number of works with her Union Dramatic Players during her residency, but it was at the Glen Williams Town Hall.
In 2015, Georgetown’s award-winning musical theatre Globe Productions presented Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
The Musical. Montgomery’s own granddaughter, Kate MacDonald Butler opened the show and LOVED IT!

The musical was first staged in 1965 as part of the inaugural Charlottetown Festival.
A song from the musical was part of the feature performance at the opening of the Confederation Centre of the Arts on October 6, 1964. Queen Elizabeth II was in the audience.
It was Don Harron who gave Norman and Elaine Campbell the book Anne of Green Gables, suggesting that it would make a great musical.
In March 2014, the production was officially recognized as the longest running annual musical theatre production in the world by Guinness World Records.
Globe’s director David Ambrose directed the 1994 production of Anne with an extended run and sold out shows!
Globe’s music director Darryl Burton directed Anne in 2002 for the Meadowvale Music Theatre.

BOOK: Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Norval Years, 1926 – 1935 by Deborah Quaile
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Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Norval Years, 1926-1935 reconstructs the reality in which the writer revolved, presenting new material that has not been seen by the current generations of Montgomery scholars and fans.
Knowing her fondness for scrapbooking through archives in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, perhaps these are the pages L.M. Montgomery would have loved to create.

The book includes the following contents:
Introduction: The Allure of L.M. Montgomery
From Prince Edward Island to the World
Norval History
Maud’s Home and Gardens
Friends and Family
Norval and Union Presbyterian Churches
Local Beauty
Life in the Village
Devotions and Duties
Maud’s Days
L.M. Montgomery’s Accomplishments
Leaving Norval
Remembering Maud: Montgomery in Modern Norval
Epilogue / Endnotes / Bibliography

UNESCO and Lucy Maud Montgomery and her Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery’s handwritten manuscript for Anne of Green Gables was added to the Canada Memory of the World Register in honor of the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth (2024).
This iconic novel Anne of Green Gables first published in 1908 is the most translated Canadian book.
The manuscript includes 475 pages on which the story is handwritten, and an additional 96 pages of L.M. Montgomery’s notes where she recorded additions and insertions to the text.
The Canada Memory of the World Register recognizes documentary heritage of national significance and is administered by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO in accordance with UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme which aims to safeguard and promote access to documentary heritage of universal value.