AV俱乐部

Lucy Maud Montgomery had the time of her life studying English literature at what was then AV俱乐部 College in 1895-96. Maud, as she was called by her friends, saved her teacher鈥檚 salary for an entire year to pay the tuition; she reveled in the challenge of her studies, the intellectually stimulating conversations and the proximity to Point Pleasant Park where she loved to stroll.

It was a time when her talents as a writer were first being recognized. In one week in 1896, her short stories and poems were accepted in three different publications: 鈥�$5 + $5 + $12!鈥� she wrote. 鈥淚 really feel quite bloated by so much wealth.鈥�

While attending classes at AV俱乐部, Lucy Maud Montgomery boarded at the Halifax Ladies College on Barrington Street. (Nova Scotia Museum collection)

Her affection for AV俱乐部 comes through on the pages of her scrapbooks, in the snips of black-and-gold ribbon, newspaper clippings, convocation programs and fin-de-siecle fashion illustrations of women wearing satin gowns with glorious puffed sleeves.

Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, a Dal alum herself (MA 1974), writes about the scrapbooks and the profound influence they have on L.M. Montgomery鈥檚 fiction, in Imagining Anne (Penguin Canada). Like Budge Wilson鈥檚 Before Green Gables, the beautiful book has been released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables.

鈥淪he wrote about AV俱乐部 in her journals and it鈥檚 there in her scrapbooks,鈥� says Ms. Epperly鈥擝etsy to her friends. 鈥淪he looks back on it so fondly. And, of course, she fleshes out the experience in Anne of the Island, calling AV俱乐部 鈥楻edmond College.鈥� The year she spends at AV俱乐部 turns into a full-fledged BA for Anne.鈥�

AV俱乐部 College in a 1907 postcard. It's now called the Forrest Building. (Nova Scotia Museum collection)

While at AV俱乐部 College, L.M. Montgomery boarded at the Halifax Ladies College, an imposing mansion that used to stand on the south-end of Barrington Street. At one point, after a bout of measles, she was moved out of the infirmary to a tiny white room on a floor called 鈥渢hird-and-a-half,鈥� which included only five rooms. Even after she recuperated, she asked to remain.

During the writing of Before Green Gables, Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Epperly discussed the author鈥檚 stay at the Halifax Ladies College. And it struck Mrs. Wilson: she believes she stayed in the same room when she was a student at the school half a century later.

鈥淚 actually feel shivery thinking of it,鈥� says Mrs. Wilson, whose parents transferred her to the school because she was constantly sick while attending what was then LeMarchant Street School. (Her Grade 2 class there had 66 children compared to the six students at the ladies college.) 鈥淭he room was very, very white: a white bedspread, white chair, white lamp. If Montgomery was in that room and didn鈥檛 want to leave it, she was happy there. I was also so fond of that room. It is still very vivid to me today.鈥�

Mrs. Wilson surmises that when L.M. Montgomery was imagining Anne鈥檚 room in Green Gables, she was remembering the little room at the Ladies College. Described at the beginning of the 1908 novel as 鈥減ainfully bare鈥� and 鈥渙f a rigidity not to be described in words,鈥� Anne comes to regard the room as a peaceful sanctuary, where she would sit and daydream at the open window.

鈥淚 feel in my bones that it was the same room,鈥� says Mrs. Wilson.

Ms. Epperly finds the connection spooky. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 say definitively because I never saw that room. But I think authors have intuition about these things. And I would trust Budge鈥檚 instincts on that.鈥�