Perspectives on the Circumstances of L.M. Montgomery's Death:
Was It Suicide or an Accident?
Mary Beth Cavert (c) 2014
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2008 In the summer of 2008, L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter, Kate Macdonald Butler, revealed that she had been told by her father, Stuart Macdonald, that the author had left a suicide note by her bedside at her death. Before his death in September 1982, Stuart gave the note to Dr. Mary Rubio, Montgomery's biographer, who kept its contents private until her Montgomery biography, The Gift of Wings, was published later in 2008. In the following article (see related articles, archive sidebar, for Butler's statement), Rubio responded and explained that the note seemed to be about Montgomery's journals, that she was ending her authorship of them and this note was perhaps the final page of a longer missing document:
Lucy Maud suffered 'unbearable psychological pain': But there's 'a much wider context for understanding' final note found on bedside table of Anne's creator, biographer says Read more about Mary Rubio and Stuart Macdonald in the article on the BIOGRAPHY page. |
TEXT of note (dated April 22) found by Dr. Stuart Macdonald at the time of Montgomery's death, (April 24, 1942):
This copy is unfinished and never will be. It is in a terrible state because I made it when I had begun to suffer my terrible breakdown of 1940. It must end here. If any publishers wish to publish extracts from it under the terms of my will they must stop here. The tenth volume can never be copied and must not be made public during my lifetime. Parts of it are too terrible and would hurt people. I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best. Excerpted from Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings. Copyright © 2008 Mary Henley Rubio, published by Doubleday Canada. |
Handwritten Journal entry July 8, 1941: "Oh, God, such an end to life. Such suffering and wretchedness."
"Then on March 23, 1942, She began her final entry ... of her journal ... : " since then [July 8, 1941] 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 what my awful position is." ~~ from The Gift of Wings
For most of her life, Montgomery was able to rally her spirits in hard times. But in the late 1930s and 1940-42, she lost the capacity for resilience. In The Gift of Wings (2008), Mary Rubio details the destructive effects of her medications and the actions and behaviors of Montgomery's son, Chester, during the last years of her life and concludes that he was "in the end, her undoing."
Montgomery created two versions of her personal journals, the handwritten ones and an edited typed version, one for each son - she instructed them to publish her life story someday, presumably using the typescript.
2012 Vanessa Brown (who assisted in the appraisal of the "suicide note") determined that the note seemed to be instructions to Stuart to use the typescript version when he published it and not include the last entries (the tenth volume) from her handwritten journals. Brown also notes that Montgomery crossed out would and inserted will in the sentence, I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. In Brown's view, the note was a letter of formal instruction but she also sensed it was partly "a final note of farewell."
The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume Two (2014)
Was Montgomery imploring everyone to forgive her for the things she wrote that "hurt people" or an action she was taking?
2013 Rubio wrote more about the uncertainties surrounding Montgomery's death. With years of editing LMM's personal journals as a backdrop, Rubio could see the dilemma facing Montgomery by 1940: deeply disturbing things had happened in her life (and family) which were her true life story but they were things she would not want published or read by her grandchildren. She could not even record the worst of them. She also did not know how much longer she would have to see how events turned out. Could she continue to record and craft her life story or had she lost the ability to continue writing - was it time to stop? Montgomery wanted to control her own story and how she would be remembered. However, she was taking numerous medications for injuries and pain management, she had lost a great deal of weight, and she was aware of changes in her thinking processes and mental state.
Rubio wished she would have questioned Stuart more before his early death in 1982: Was there any other clear evidence of suicide or was it their (Stuart, Dr. Lane, Anita Webb) interpretation of the note that contributed to this conclusion? Did Stuart find the note or did Maud's friend and household helper, Anita? Was Anita's interpretation of her friend's death because of what she saw or what she was told? Were there other papers there, like her typescript, or was the "note' the only item? Could Dr. Lane have been embarrassed that his famous patient died under his regimen? Did he give her an injection that morning when he visited her, as he did at other times, and did she self-administer medication too? Where was her son Chester at the time? Did her words "what an end to a life" indicate an intention on her part or an expression of the anguish of her general state of mind?
See also Anne Around the World: L.M. Montgomery and Her Classic (2013)
"I am companioned by thoughts of old laughter and joys, shadowy footsteps of dead or absent friends, voices of the vanished years."
It is clear that Montgomery was weighted down with a thick cloak of depression, whatever its origins, and she lacked strength and the medical care to overcome it. The note reveals her isolation and the root of her heart-sickness, "Nobody realizes it." She was alone, her closest confidantes were absent - she had always depended on her trusted intimate friends to help her emotionally as well as accessing her own "dream world" where she could retreat and refresh. All of her supports had fallen away.
Rubio has also said that if Montgomery was lucid she would not have ended her life intentionally because of the shame it would have brought upon her family and legacy [for that reason, it could be said that if her death was intentional, she would have tried to hide it, and make it seem natural, if she was lucid].
Was her death pre-meditated or pre-medicated? While there may still be further evidence that L.M. Montgomery had a hand in her own end, it is certainly not beyond understanding, given her health, the stress of her responsibilities, family burdens, and unbearable world events.
"Does it matter how Maud died?" said Rubio, towards the end of her speech Saturday. "I don't think it does." [from an article about the 2008 Montgomery conference in Guelph, Ontario]
"Then on March 23, 1942, She began her final entry ... of her journal ... : " since then [July 8, 1941] 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 what my awful position is." ~~ from The Gift of Wings
For most of her life, Montgomery was able to rally her spirits in hard times. But in the late 1930s and 1940-42, she lost the capacity for resilience. In The Gift of Wings (2008), Mary Rubio details the destructive effects of her medications and the actions and behaviors of Montgomery's son, Chester, during the last years of her life and concludes that he was "in the end, her undoing."
Montgomery created two versions of her personal journals, the handwritten ones and an edited typed version, one for each son - she instructed them to publish her life story someday, presumably using the typescript.
2012 Vanessa Brown (who assisted in the appraisal of the "suicide note") determined that the note seemed to be instructions to Stuart to use the typescript version when he published it and not include the last entries (the tenth volume) from her handwritten journals. Brown also notes that Montgomery crossed out would and inserted will in the sentence, I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. In Brown's view, the note was a letter of formal instruction but she also sensed it was partly "a final note of farewell."
The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume Two (2014)
Was Montgomery imploring everyone to forgive her for the things she wrote that "hurt people" or an action she was taking?
2013 Rubio wrote more about the uncertainties surrounding Montgomery's death. With years of editing LMM's personal journals as a backdrop, Rubio could see the dilemma facing Montgomery by 1940: deeply disturbing things had happened in her life (and family) which were her true life story but they were things she would not want published or read by her grandchildren. She could not even record the worst of them. She also did not know how much longer she would have to see how events turned out. Could she continue to record and craft her life story or had she lost the ability to continue writing - was it time to stop? Montgomery wanted to control her own story and how she would be remembered. However, she was taking numerous medications for injuries and pain management, she had lost a great deal of weight, and she was aware of changes in her thinking processes and mental state.
Rubio wished she would have questioned Stuart more before his early death in 1982: Was there any other clear evidence of suicide or was it their (Stuart, Dr. Lane, Anita Webb) interpretation of the note that contributed to this conclusion? Did Stuart find the note or did Maud's friend and household helper, Anita? Was Anita's interpretation of her friend's death because of what she saw or what she was told? Were there other papers there, like her typescript, or was the "note' the only item? Could Dr. Lane have been embarrassed that his famous patient died under his regimen? Did he give her an injection that morning when he visited her, as he did at other times, and did she self-administer medication too? Where was her son Chester at the time? Did her words "what an end to a life" indicate an intention on her part or an expression of the anguish of her general state of mind?
See also Anne Around the World: L.M. Montgomery and Her Classic (2013)
"I am companioned by thoughts of old laughter and joys, shadowy footsteps of dead or absent friends, voices of the vanished years."
It is clear that Montgomery was weighted down with a thick cloak of depression, whatever its origins, and she lacked strength and the medical care to overcome it. The note reveals her isolation and the root of her heart-sickness, "Nobody realizes it." She was alone, her closest confidantes were absent - she had always depended on her trusted intimate friends to help her emotionally as well as accessing her own "dream world" where she could retreat and refresh. All of her supports had fallen away.
Rubio has also said that if Montgomery was lucid she would not have ended her life intentionally because of the shame it would have brought upon her family and legacy [for that reason, it could be said that if her death was intentional, she would have tried to hide it, and make it seem natural, if she was lucid].
Was her death pre-meditated or pre-medicated? While there may still be further evidence that L.M. Montgomery had a hand in her own end, it is certainly not beyond understanding, given her health, the stress of her responsibilities, family burdens, and unbearable world events.
"Does it matter how Maud died?" said Rubio, towards the end of her speech Saturday. "I don't think it does." [from an article about the 2008 Montgomery conference in Guelph, Ontario]
