Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Woman Before Her Time

Although Montgomery was an avid writer from a very early age, her first book, Anne of Green Gables, was not published until she was 34. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s love of learning led her on an unconventional path for women in her time, pursuing post-secondary education and a career. Prior to her literary fame, she attended college and university, wrote for local papers, and worked as a teacher and postmaster! Montgomery’s teaching career influenced and inspired her writings, and her desire for further education helped to cultivate her craft. 

 

Montgomery’s first step towards higher education started at 18 with her post-secondary degree at the Prince of Wales College. Here, she finished the two-year teaching program in just one year and received her teacher’s license in 1894. 

 

She landed her first teaching position at a one-room schoolhouse in Bideford where she taught from 1894 -1895. She was nineteen when she taught here and the house where she boarded while teaching in Bideford is now The Bideford Parsonage Museum. Visit this hidden gem off the beaten path to learn more about Lucy Maud Montgomery as a teacher and life in rural PEI in the late19th century. 

 

From 1895-1896, Montgomery went back to school to study literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She saved $100 out of her $180 teacher salary in Bideford to pay for tuition and board at Dalhousie. Montgomery’s decision to continue her education did not warrant much support from the local Cavendish community, but she was passionate about learning and determined to further her scholarly studies. 

After her year at Dalhousie, Montgomery returned to teaching on PEI and taught at Belmont School from 1896-1897. The schoolhouse she taught in is now located in Avonlea Village in Cavendish. 

 

In the fall of 1897, Montgomery began teaching in Bedeque. Now, you can step back in time at the quaint Lower Bedeque Schoolhouse and see what life as a teacher was like for L.M. Montgomery. In March 1898 after only a few months of teaching in Bedeque, Montgomery received a tragic telegram that her Grandfather MacNeill had died. She left Bedeque immediately to take care of her aging grandmother in Cavendish where she lived for most of the next thirteen years. Here, she worked in the family post office and continued to wield her pen, writing poems, essays, and stories for local publishers. It was during this time in Cavendish that her writing career took off with the publication of Anne of Green Gables. Through her writing, Montgomery was able to make a livable income for herself and continued to earn money from her publications after she was married and raising children. Today, you can explore the museums and restored schoolhouses that tell more of Montgomery’s story and how her determination and deep love of learning and writing have left a lasting mark on Canadian literature.