Editing Lucy Maud Montgomery (section)

===Later life===

[[File:LMM Leaskdale.jpg|thumb|[[Leaskdale Manse]], home of Lucy Maud Montgomery from 1911 to 1926]]

[[File:Lucy Maud Montgomery holding a jug, Norval (I0001762).tif|thumb|Lucy Maud Montgomery holding a jug, Norval, 1932]]

In 1925, Ewen Macdonald became estranged from his flock when he opposed his church's joining the [[United Church of Canada]], and was involved in an incident where he nearly ran over a [[Methodist]] minister who was promoting the union.{{sfn|Brennan|1995|p=254}} Montgomery, as the minister's wife, had been a prominent member of the Leaskdale community and had been a much-loved figure who organized community events.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=294}} Rubio wrote the people of Leaskdale "liked" the Reverend Macdonald, but "loved" Montgomery.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=294}} At the same time, she complained in her diary her husband had a "medieval mind" when it came to women; to him: "A woman is a thing of no importance intellectually -- the plaything and servant of man -- and couldn't possibly do anything that would be worthy of a real tribute."{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=294}}

In 1926, the family moved into the [[Norval, Ontario|Norval]] Presbyterian Charge, in present-day [[Halton Hills, Ontario|Halton Hills]], Ontario, where today the ''Lucy Maud Montgomery Memorial Garden'' can be seen from [[Highway 7 (Ontario)|Highway 7]]; the Norval Presbyterian Church closed in February 2024, and is now a South Asian congregation of the [[Eastern Orthodox]] faith  {{url|stgoc.org | St. Gergorios @ Norval Indian Orthodox Church}}. In 1934, Montgomery's extremely depressed husband signed himself into a [[sanatorium]] in [[Guelph]]. After his release, the drug store gave Montgomery a "blue pill" intended to treat her husband's depression that was accidentally laced with insecticide (a mistake on the part of the drug store clerk) that almost killed him.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=437}} The Reverend Macdonald became notably paranoid after this incident, as his mental health continued to deteriorate.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=437}}

In 1933, Montgomery published ''Pat of Silver Bush'', which reflected a move towards more "adult" stories for young people.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|pp=424–425}} Unlike Anne with her sense of optimism and vibrancy, Pat is a "queer" moody girl who is noted for being a "loner".{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=424}} Pat's best friend, Elizabeth "Bets" Wilcox, dies of the Spanish flu, giving the book a darker tone than Montgomery's previous books.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=425}} In a letter to a fan in 1934 who complained about the dark mood of ''Pat of Silver Bush'', Montgomery replied: "I gave Anne my imagination and Emily Starr my knack for scribbling; but the girl who is more myself than any other is 'Pat of Silver Bush' ... Not ''externally'', but spiritually she is I".{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=426}} Pat's deep attachment to the countryside of Prince Edward Island, especially her family farm, Silver Bush, mirrored Montgomery's own attachment to the countryside of her home province, and the farm that she grew up on.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|pp=426–427}}

In 1935, upon her husband's retirement, Montgomery moved to [[Swansea, Toronto|Swansea]], Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, buying a house that she named Journey's End, situated on Riverside Drive along the east bank of the [[Humber River (Ontario)|Humber River]]. Montgomery continued to write and in addition to writing other material, returned to writing about Anne after a 15-year hiatus, filling in previously unexplored gaps in the chronology she had developed for the character.{{sfn|Brennan|1995|p=255}} She published ''[[Anne of Windy Poplars]]'' in 1936 and ''[[Anne of Ingleside]]'' in 1939.{{sfn|Brennan|1995|p=255}} ''[[Jane of Lantern Hill]]'', a non-Anne novel, was also composed around this time and published in 1937.{{sfn|Brennan|1995|p=255}} On June 3, 1935 ([[1935 Birthday Honours]]), [[King George V]] named Montgomery an Officer of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (OBE), and on September 8, 1935, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, the ceremony of investiture into the Order was held with the Governor-General, [[Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough |Lord Bessborough]], conducting the ceremony.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=459}} As an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Montgomery was given a special badge and ribbon, which could only be worn in public in the presence of the King or one of his representatives, such as the [[Governor-General of Canada]].{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=459}} Her husband did not attend the ceremony, but Montgomery was by all accounts greatly honoured to be appointed an OBE.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=459}}

Writing kept up Montgomery's spirits as she battled depression while taking various pills to improve her mood, but in public she presented a happy, smiling face, giving speeches to various professional groups all over Canada.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=519}} At the Toronto Book Fair, held on November 9, 1936, to promote Canadian literature, Montgomery met the pseudo-[[Ojibwe]] author and environmentalist [[Grey Owl]].{{sfn|Rubio|2008|pp=485–486}} During her speech to the assembled authors, Montgomery spoke of hearing an "owl's laughter" in Leaskdale, causing Grey Owl to jump up and interrupt her, saying: "You are the first white person I have ever met who has heard an owl's laughter. I thought nobody but Indians ever heard it. We hear it often because we are a silent race. My full name is Laughing Grey Owl."{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=486}} Grey Owl's remark made the front page of ''The Toronto Mail and Empire'' newspaper the next day.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=486}}  Montgomery described Grey Owl in her diary: "Grey Owl was looking quite the Indian of romance, with his long black braids of hair, his feather headdress and a genuine scalping knife -- at least he told us it was genuine."{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=487}} Montgomery liked Grey Owl's speech the same evening stating that Canada's "greatest asset is her forest lands" and that most Canadians were too proud of "skyscrapers on Yonge Street" rather than the "natural resources we are destroying as fast as we can".{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=487}} After Grey Owl's death in 1938, and the revelation that the supposed Ojibwe was actually the Englishman Archie Belaney, Montgomery stated that though Belaney lied about being an Ojibwe his concerns for the environment, nature, and animals were real; and for this reason Grey Owl's message was worth cherishing.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|p=487}}

On November 10, 1937, Montgomery gave a speech in Toronto at another annual gathering of the Toronto Book Fair calling for Canadian writers to write more stories about Canada, arguing that Canadians had great stories worth writing.{{sfn|Rubio|2008|pp=519–520}} Despite her efforts to raise the profile of Canadian literature through the [[Canadian Authors Association]], the male ''avant garde'' of Canadian literature led by [[Frederick Philip Grove]], [[F. R. Scott]], [[Morley Callaghan]] and [[Raymond Knister]] complained about the mostly female membership of the CAA, whom they felt had overly glorified someone like Montgomery who was not a "serious" writer.{{sfn|Hammill|2006|p=660}} Over time, Montgomery became addicted to [[bromide]]s and [[barbiturate]]s that the doctors had given her to help treat her depression.

Montgomery was greatly upset by [[World War II]], calling the war in a 1940 letter "this nightmare that has been loosed on the world... unfair that we should have to go through it again."{{sfn|Brennan|1995|p=255}} In her only diary entry for 1941, Montgomery wrote on July 8, 1941: "Oh God, such an end to life. Such suffering and wretchedness."{{sfn|Rubio|Waterston|2004|p=349}} On December 28, 1941, Montgomery wrote to a friend: <blockquote>"This past year has been one of constant blows to me. My oldest son has made a mess of his life and his wife has left him. My husband's nerves are even worse than mine. I have kept the nature of his attacks from you for over 20 years but they have broken me at last ... I could not go out to select a book for you this year. Pardon me. I could not even write this if I had not been a hypodermic. The war situation kills me along with many other things. I expect conscription will come in and they will take my second son and then I will give up all effort to recover because I shall have nothing to live for."{{sfn|Brennan|1995|pp=255–256}}</blockquote> In 1940, the Canadian Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] introduced conscription under the [[National Resources Mobilization Act]], but with the caveat that conscripts could only be used in the defence of North America, and only volunteers would be sent overseas. Mackenzie King scheduled a [[1942 Canadian conscription plebiscite|referendum]] for April 27, 1942, to ask the voters to release him from his promise to only send volunteers overseas, which Montgomery alluded to in her letter mentioning "conscription will come in." In her last entry in her diary on March 23, 1942, Montgomery wrote: "Since then my life has been hell, hell, hell. My mind is gone—everything in the world I lived for has gone–the world has gone mad. I shall be driven to end my life. Oh God, forgive me. Nobody dreams of what my awful position is."{{sfn|Rubio|Waterston|2004|p=350}}

In the last year of her life, Montgomery completed what she intended to be a ninth book featuring Anne, titled ''[[The Blythes Are Quoted]]''. It included fifteen short stories (many of which were previously published) that she revised to include Anne and her family as mainly peripheral characters; forty-one poems (most of which were previously published) that she attributed to Anne and to her son Walter, who died as a soldier in the Great War; and vignettes featuring the Blythe family members discussing the poems. The book was delivered to Montgomery's publisher on the day of her death, but for reasons unexplained, the publisher declined to issue the book at the time. Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre speculates that the book's dark tone and anti-war message (Anne speaks very bitterly of WWI in one passage) may have made the volume unsuitable to publish in the midst of the Second World War.

An abridged version of this book, which shortened and reorganized the stories and omitted all the vignettes and all but one of the poems, was published as a collection of short stories called ''The Road to Yesterday'' in 1974, more than 30 years after the original work had been submitted. A complete edition of ''The Blythes Are Quoted'', edited by Benjamin Lefebvre, was finally published in its entirety by Viking Canada in October 2009, more than 67 years after it was composed.