“Winter set in awfully early this year. Ten days before Christmas we had a big snowstorm—at least we thought it big at the time. As it happened, it was only a prelude to the real performance. It was fine the next day, and Ingleside and Rainbow Valley were wonderful, with the trees all covered with snow, and big drifts everywhere, carved into the most fantastic shapes by the chisel of the northeast wind. Father and mother went up to Avonlea. Father thought the change would do mother good, and they wanted to see poor Aunt Diana, whose son Jock had been seriously wounded a short time before. They left Susan and me to keep house, and father expected to be back the next day. But he never got back for a week. That night it began to storm again, and it stormed unbrokenly for four days. It was the worst and longest storm that Prince Edward Island has known for years. Everything was disorganized—the roads were completely choked up, the trains blockaded, and the telephone wires put entirely out of commission.” Rilla of Ingleside

fanfic plot:

Gilbert escorts Anne to Avonlea to stay with Diana & Fred. Both are there to collect them from the train station. When they arrive at Lone Willow the Wrights help settle them in then announce they have to visit Orchard Slope to make a short visit to Minnie Mae and Diana’s unwell mother. Gilbert offers to go but they insist she’s ok, just old and cranky - they’ll return for supper. After they leave a snow storm comes in making it impossible for Diana and Fred to return leaving Anne and Gilbert alone to confront unspoken fears and their grief since losing Walter.

Gilbert Blythe's heart-melting words (in AHOD)

1- "And all heaven opened before me,” supplemented Gilbert. “From that moment I looked forward to tomorrow. When I left you at your gate that night and walked home I was the happiest boy in the world. Anne had forgiven me.”

2- “Anne, this is Captain Boyd. Captain Boyd, my wife.”

It was the first time Gilbert had said “my wife” to anybody but Anne, and he narrowly escaped bursting with the pride of it.

3- “You’ll stay right here with me, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert lazily. “I won’t have you flying away from me into the hearts of storms.”

4- “YOU know, Anne-girl,” said Gilbert, smiling into her eyes.

5- I wouldn’t have your hair any color but just what it is for the world,” said Gilbert, with one or two convincing accompaniments.

You wouldn’t be ANNE if you had golden hair—or hair of any color but”—

“Yes, red—to give warmth to that milk-white skin and those shining gray-green eyes of yours. Golden hair wouldn’t suit you at all Queen Anne—MY Queen Anne—queen of my heart and life and home.”

7- “Just one of earth’s many millions of homes, Anne—girl—but ours—OURS—our beacon in 'a naughty world.’ When a fellow has a home and a dear, little, red-haired wife in it what more need he ask of life?”

8- “He certainly will. He weighs ten pounds and—why, listen to him. Nothing wrong with his lungs, is there? The nurse says his hair will be red. Anne is furious with her, and I’m tickled to death.”

9-Gilbert put his arm about them. “Oh you mothers!” he said. “You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you.”

10-“We have been very happy here, haven’t we, Anne-girl?” said Gilbert, his voice full of feeling.

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES: THE CONTINUING STORY (2000) dir. Kevin Sullivan

Rilla of Ingleside created a new timeline...

Anne's House of Dreams mentioned a historical event - a federal election: “Mistress Blythe, the Liberals are in with a sweeping majority. After eighteen years of Tory mismanagement this down-trodden country is going to have a chance at last.” (AHoD).

From Wikipedia: "The 1896 Canadian federal election was held on June 23, 1896, to elect members of the House of Commons of Canada of the 8th Parliament of Canada. Though the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Charles Tupper, won a plurality of the popular vote, the Liberal Party, led by Wilfrid Laurier, won the majority of seats to form the next government. The election ended 18 years of Conservative rule."

It wouldn't be surprsing, but... it was also the year in which Jem Blythe was born! The election took place few weeks after his birth: "When Anne came downstairs again, the Island, as well as all Canada, was in the throes of a campaign preceding a general election." (AHoD).

So... according to this timeline, Walter was born a year later (1897), then the twins (1899), Shirley (1901) and Rilla (1903).

The point is... at the outbreak of the war, Walter would have been only 17 years old, the twins 15, Shirley 13, Rilla 11...

Shirley would have been too young to participate in the war and Walter would have barely turned nineteen at the time of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in September of 1916...

Someone in one of my older posts noticed that puff sleeves fashion suggested that Anne of Green Gables took place in 1880s rather than 1870s... so it would make sense!

I wonder why Montgomery chose Rilla as her teenage heroine (according to the original chronology, Rilla should have been only 11 years old), while there were 15-year-old twins...

Can you imagine Nan and Di as the main characters of the war book? Two young girls at Queen's, trying to come to terms with rapidly changing world? Rilla and Shirley at Ingleside, growing closer in such trying times? Teenage boys - Jem and Walter - who had to choose if they wanted to sacrifice their life at even younger age - at eighteen? Walter, never reaching the age of twenty (or maybe - dare I hope - coming back home safely)? Anne and Gilbert in their 40s, trying to collect all the broken pieces that was once their family?

It would have been equally good, in my opinion. I wonder... why Montgomery felt she had to suddenly change a whole chronology?

Side note: of course, I love Rilla of Ingleside. But I am just curious... (Nan and Di of Ingleside would be a good book, too!).

@diario-de-gilbert-blythe @gogandmagog @pinkenamelheart @valancystirling48

“In a hole in the ground there lived a strange girl—an orphan girl—”

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien blended not-entirely-seamlessly with Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I just read your Jem and Rilla fiction before he goes off to school and is saying he will practice on her and she needs to keep in school. SOOO good. So endearing!! Please tell me there will be a sequel soon where he is practicing and she is learning to trust more!

Hi There!

Thank you for your kind words! I actually forgot I posted that. Thank you for reading it to! I was going through a Jem and Faith phase and then I lost interest on it. I’ll think about writing some of it.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars

nap in the sun ☀️

Montgomery, L.M, Anne of Green Gables, (Reader's Digest: 1994)

Please, give me an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables that faithfully covers House of Dreams and Ingleside (my two favorite books in the series)

Oh, I would've killed for an adaptation of those books with Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie.

"Anne was never attended by the crowd of willing victims who hovered around Philippa’s conquering march through her Freshman year; but there was a lanky, brainy Freshie, a jolly, little, round Sophomore, and a tall, learned Junior who all liked to call at Thirty-eight, St. John’s, and talk over ’ologies and ’isms, as well as lighter subjects, with Anne, in the becushioned parlor of that domicile. Gilbert did not love any of them, and he was exceedingly careful to give none of them the advantage over him by any untimely display of his real feelings Anne-ward. To her he had become again the boy-comrade of Avonlea days, and as such could hold his own against any smitten swain who had so far entered the lists against him. As a companion, Anne honestly acknowledged nobody could be so satisfactory as Gilbert; she was very glad, so she told herself, that he had evidently dropped all nonsensical ideas—though she spent considerable time secretly wondering why."

Anne of The Island by L. M. Montgomery

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (1985) dir. Kevin Sullivan

Married for decades Gilbert Blythe, STILL sour towards Roy Gardner/other Threats

this part from the TBAQ is meant to be sad but it always cracks me up, it reads as Jem pitying Walter as a virgin who can't drive hahahaha and then RILLA

JEM: “Do you mean to say, mums, that you and dad were on bad terms when you went to school?”  DOCTOR BLTYHE: “Your mother thought she had a grudge against me, but I always wanted to be friends. However, that is all ancient history now. When did death come and look at you?”  ANNE: “Not my death. It was the shadow of your death I was thinking of... when everybody thought you were dying of typhoid. I thought I would die, too. And the night after I had heard you had taken a turn for the better... ah, that was the ‘wakefulness of joy’!”  DOCTOR BLYTHE: “It couldn’t have been anything to mine the night after I found you loved me!”  JEM, aside to Nan: “When dad and mums get to talking like that we find out a lot about their early days we never knew.”  SUSAN, who is making pies in the kitchen: “Isn’t it beautiful to see how they love each other? I can understand a good deal of that poem, old maid as I am!”

— ‘The Sixth Evening,’ The Blythes are Quoted, Lucy Maud Montgomery  

I was just revisiting this book, as I was getting ready for bed... and I remembered the first time that I read this chapter, how I had a good laugh over the notion that Jem and the Blythe kids didn’t know very much about their parents ‘early days,’ especially since their ‘early days’ stories are overall charming and amusing if nothing else... but it just now occurred to me, that there would be simply no way to tell this story to their kids without betraying two things. First, that Gilbert went and called Anne “carrots,” for all intents and purposes making proper fun of her hair, and second, that Anne was fragile and sensitive about her red hair and wished it were any different color.     These guys have 2.5 (.5 for Rilla, whose hair does change later) children with red hair. Of course it can’t be mentioned! The idea of sharing the same hair as your mother, only to come to understand that she hated her own hair? Or that your father was once known to tease her for that hair. Big oof! Which had me then realise as well, that Anne leaves off lamenting her hair to anyone expect Susan and Gilbert (always privately, too), in any book past Anne of the Island. I’m convinced it’s for these reasons.