Family Reveals that Anne of Green Gables Author Committed Suicide

Posted on September 23, 2008

The literary world got a shock this week: it turns out that Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the children's classic Anne of Green Gables committed suicide. The news was revealed granddaughter, Kate Macdonald Butler, daughter of Montgomery's youngest son Stuart Macdonald. Kate Butler said that her grandmother killed herself with an overdose of drugs at the age of 67.

Kate Macdonald Butler, daughter of Montgomery's youngest son Stuart Macdonald, made the long-kept family secret public in an article for Canada's Globe and Mail. "I have come to feel very strongly that the stigma surrounding mental illness will be forever upon us as a society until we sweep away the misconception that depression happens to other people, not us � and most certainly not to our heroes and icons," she wrote.
Macdonald Butler was also prompted to break the family's silence by the heightened focus on Montgomery this year, which marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables.
"Despite her great success, it is known that she suffered from depression, that she was isolated, sad and filled with worry and dread for much of her life," Macdonald Butler wrote. She said that Montgomery had to cope both with "her husband's mental illness and the restrictions of her life as a clergyman's wife and mother in an era when women's roles were highly defined".
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"The fictional Anne went on to happiness and a life full of love and fulfilment. My grandmother's reality was not so positive, although she continues to inspire generations of readers with her books, which reveal her understanding of nature � both in matters of the heart and the world," she wrote. "I hope that by writing about my grandmother now there might be less secrecy and more awareness that will ease the unnecessary suffering so many people experience as a result of such depressions."

Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote nineteen other novels and her books still sell today. How tragic that she suffered so much during her lifetime without any treatment. We are glad her granddaughter spoke out -- perhaps it will help those who are suffering from depression and are hesitant to seek treatment.