Cosmos to celebrate ‘Anne’ author’s birth with regular ‘Nod to Maud’

The council of the Township of Uxbridge declared on Monday afternoon that 2024 is officially “Lucy Maud Montgomery 150.” Already it’s being touted as “the Year of Maud,” in recognition of the 150th birthday of one of Canada’s most beloved authors.

Montgomery’s home in Leaskdale, where she lived for 15 years, is a National Historic Site.

The Cosmos will, in its own tribute, each week (space permitting) from now until Montgomery’s birthday on Nov. 30, offer readers a short excerpt from Montgomery’s own journals, written during her Leaskdale years. The journals, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston of the University of Guelph, are published by Oxford University Press.

The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, former lieutenant governor for Ontario, unveils a life-sized statue of Lucy Maud Montgomery at the Historic Leaskdale Church in June, 2015. Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario member Kathy Wasylenky, left, and statue artist Wynn Walters help with the unveiling. The Church and Manse, which is across the road, comprise a National Historic Site. Cosmos file photo

Lucy Maud Montgomery used the Uxbridge train station many times in later years on business trips to Toronto. But it was in September of 1911 that Montgomery and her new husband, Presbyterian minister Ewan Macdonald, disembarked here after a two-month honeymoon in England and Scotland. Here’s what she wrote in her journal about her first experience of Uxbridge:

“We got into New York on Friday morning in such a driving downpour of rain that we could not see anything. We travelled all night, getting to Toronto in the morning. At five we took the train for Uxbridge, our home station, and reached it at dark. Two or three of Mr. Macdonald's friends met us, and it was nice to be welcomed. But I was dreadfully tired; it was a damp, murky autumn night, and when we started on our muddy seven-mile drive I felt discouraged, heartsick and homesick. The next time I went over that road it was glorious with October sunshine and crimson maples, with snug, prosperous farmsteads along it, and I thought it was a very pretty road indeed.”

Also watch for interesting facts about the author and her life in a series that highlights the current fundraising effort initiated by the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario.