Episode Three: The Most Vital Subject In The World

Lou Dystant

A long-time admirer of Maud’s.

Maud wrote of Lou:

"(He) does very well for someone to drive me about."

November, 1894.

Maud and her fiancé/cousin

Edwin Simpson

Engaged in 1897.

Maud wrote:

"I thought I cared for him."

Herman Leard

The love of Maud's life. Their affair lasted months over 1897-1898.

She wrote:

"I loved Herman Leard madly."

Ettie Schurman

Herman Leard's fiancé.

See the pink arrow.

CBC Article - March 04, 2016

Lucy Maud Montgomery connection celebrated in Leard home restoration.

Read the article HERE

Oliver Macneill

Also a cousin, Oliver pursued Maud for marriage in 1909.

Of Oliver, Maud said in her journals:

"He sought me out everywhere."

Maud models her wedding fashions shipped from Montreal, Quebec.

Taken before her 1911 wedding to Ewan Macdonald.

Honeymoon snap taken by Maud.

New husband Ewan, pen-pal George MacMillan, & his fiancé Jean Allen in Scotland 1911.

Captain Edwin Smith, 1921

Maud wrote:

"Captain Smith is one of the few people I have met with whom I can discuss with absolute frankness, any and every subject, even the delicate ones of sex."

Isabel Anderson,

photo taken in her 30s

Included is Isabel's Valentine to Maud
(no date found)

Stef & Jen discovered this card in The University of Guelph Archives. They carefully put it back in the Agatha Christie novel in which they found it… after they took a picture!

Bosom Friends: Lesbian Desire in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Books

Download the full article by Laura Robinson HERE