#walter blythe

[alwayschasingrainbows]

Walter Blythe & Gilbert Blythe

"He patted Walter's head and Walter caught his hand and hugged it. There was no one like Dad in the world." (Anne of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery).

"People said he had never been the same since his son was killed in the Great War."

"...we have our memories of him and souls cannot die. We can still walk with Walter in the spring."

(The Blythes Are Quoted by L. M. Montgomery)

I look for you in every star.

[phantomstatistician]

Fandom: Anne of Green Gables

Sample Size: 488 stories

Source: AO3

NOTE: This chart excludes stories from "Anne With An E", as requested.

[ynhart]

A wip

-So many children to draw!!!

-added Anne + Rilla in this 2024 version

[brightriverstation]

Walter spilling a seed packet of poppies.

Anne noting they don’t live long.

Using the term Imperial to describe them.

Oh, Maud 😞 so heartbreaking knowing Walter will later die for his country part of an Imperial war, his grave to become a field of poppies. He got to live before feeling the need to become a stiff, boring person.

[skybluearia]

Friendly reminder of this scene at the end of Anne of Ingleside where L.M.M gave us a tiny hint about walter's death:

This part always makes me shiver...

P.s: Apparently Anne of Ingleside was written after Rilla of Ingleside so it all makes sense now!

[shirleyjblythe]

Stare at your Walter regularly! I know you’re working on other things but sometime if you have any little!Walter’s I’d love to see it. Thank you

I think this is as young as I’ve gone with Walter. This was an expression exercise for school and this is supposed to be after the fight with Dan Reese. My reference point was:

Walter did not stay for any conqueror’s meed. He sprang over the fence and rushed down the spruce hill to Rainbow Valley. He felt none of the victor’s joy, but he felt a certain calm satisfaction in duty done and honour avenged—mingled with a sickish qualm when he thought of Dan’s gory nose. It had been so ugly, and Walter hated ugliness. Also, he began to realize that he himself was somewhat sore and battered up. His lip was cut and swollen and one eye felt very strange.

Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery

[anneofgreengablesthings]

so @shirleyjblythe posted a super fun poll to guess Shirley's middle name so of course I decided to research all the Blythe children's names bc apparently I don't know what to do with myself until school starts again!! give them a follow bc I am HERE for the Shirley appreciation

Joyce Blythe (deceased) is the only Blythe child not named for someone else. Anne wanted to call her Joy bc she was overjoyed at having a baby.

ok so Jem is actually James Matthew Blythe but they call him Jem (after Captain Jim and Matthew, in House of Dreams Anne says they were the two best men she knew outside of Gil)

Walter is apparently the next oldest, which I never put together - he is older than the twins. He is Walter Cuthbert Blythe in honor of Matthew and Marilla, and the Walter is in honor of Anne's father, Walter Shirley, who died shortly after her birth.

The twins are Anne and Diana (Nan and Di for short) after Anne and Diana of course. We don't learn their middle names.

Shirley is named after Anne's parents (Walter and Bertha Shirley) but we don't learn his middle name. Maybe something for Gil's side of the family?

Rilla is Betha Marilla Blythe, after Anne's birth mother (Bertha Shirley) and adoptive mother (Marilla Cuthbert)

[gogandmagog]

–‘Anne of Ingleside’ by Lucy Maud Montgomery feat. portrait by Paul César Helleu

[lifeofmarvvel]

Some Facts and Headcanons about the Blythe kids' appearances

Including how tall I think they are in relation to each other and who they look the most like

Jem

We know that Jem has Anne's red hair but Gilbert's curls as well as his eye color (hazel). He's said to be tall, have Anne's nose, Gilbert's mouth (and probably smile), and "the only one of the family who had ears nice enough to please Susan" (RV)

Pretty much, he's a good mix of Anne and Gilbert

The AoGG wikia also kinda roasts him by adding "Although not as handsome as his brother, Walter, or his best friend, Jerry, Jem grew up to be a good-looking young man" (rip lol, why'd they go with 2 comparisons on his looks in one sentence)

He's also decently tall, though it doesn't specify any comparisons in how tall. I'd say probably a solid 5'10 or 11.

Walter

He's considered the "handsomest of the Ingleside children" with straight black hair, and dark grey eyes.

Given that Anne also has grey eyes (though more green-gray, iirc), and the fact that he doesn't look like any known relative, I feel like there's a chance he looks like either one of Walter or Bertha's siblings (if they had any at any point) or one of their parents, his great-grandparents

As for height, I feel like he was always close in height to Jem growing up, only an inch or two shorter. They end up being roughly the same height by the time they stop growing

Nan

We find out exactly who Nan looks like in the series! During Anne of Ingleside, we find out she looks just like her Grandma Blythe. Consequently, she looks a lot like Gilbert, too -- the most of the daughters to look like him, in fact

She has straight brown hair and brown eyes. Her hair is considered silky, too. Anne appreciates the fact that at least Nan can wear pink out of her daughters

As for height, she's taller than Rilla, but still pretty short. Like, Rilla is barely shorter than her. It's a tough victory but she's not the shortest so  ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Di

Anne's mini-me! Di has her red hair and green eyes. Her hair is said to have a "swirl to it" so I'm assuming that means she got Gil's curls as well (or at least some waves).

Since she looks so much like Anne, we can likely assume she's also pretty freckled

I like to think she's the tallest of the daughters. Like 5'8 or so, not too much shorter than Jem. While growing up, she was always taller than Nan but not too much -- Nan just stopped growing first

Shirley

Ah, Susan's "little brown boy" aka brown hair, brown eyes, and a darker skin tone than the Blythe kids who got Anne's Very White skin tone. He looks the most like Nan out of his siblings, and is the son that looks the most like Gilbert (just a slight difference in eye color)

We got nothing on his hair texture but I tend to picture him with curly hair too, probably just because of that "pretty close to Gilbert's mini-me" thing I've concluded

Little siblings have a bad habit of being rude and ending up taller than their older siblings. (I say this as an oldest child who has a younger sister that's a good few inches taller than me.) Because of that, I like to think that Shirley ends up the tallest of the Blythe kids. Idk how much taller than Gilbert that would make him, if at all, but he'd be pretty tall, definitely at least 6'2

Rilla

Rilla is a good mix between Gilbert and Anne, just in a different combo than Jem. She has Gilbert's hazel eyes, Anne's freckles, and "ripely, ruddily brown" which is probably exactly what Anne wanted her hair to be when she was younger. So, pretty much, she started auburn/red-haired and turned more brunette as she got older. The red is probably most visible in the summer sun

There also isn't anything about her hair texture, either. I'd say it's either wavy or the type of straight hair that actually does hold heated curls and hairdos better than others

Rilla is the baby and, unfortunately for her, I picture her as the shortest of the family. She's like an inch shorter than Nan. All growing up she probably said stuff like "I'll be taller than both of you!" to the twins and then. it just never happened. Sorry, girl

Fun Facts (aka all this but reworded exclusively)

Jem is the only son with Anne's hair color; he's the only son with Gilbert's eye color

Walter is the only kid with the grey-side of Anne's eyes. He has the darkest hair in the entire family

Nan is the only daughter with brown eyes

Di is the only one with the green-side of Anne's eyes, making her the one with the lightest eyes

Shirley is the only son with brown eyes

Rilla is the only daughter with Gilbert's eyes

None of the children inherited Walter Shirley's blue eyes (probably since the dark-eyed gene is so strong)

None of the children inherited Bertha's blonde hair

And Grandparent Look-Alikes

Jem and Di, because of their red hair, look most like Walter Shirley out of all of their grandparents. Di probably moreso than Jem

We only know John Blythe has brown hair, so it's also possible Nan looks like Grandma Blythe and Shirley looks like John with Gilbert either looking like John or a mix of his parents

Nan is the only grandkid confirmed to look exactly like a grandparent

Walter is an anomaly so who actually knows lol

--

Anyway, I don't really have a reason for posting this other than, hopefully, as a helpful guide to others and as a way for me to make sure my hcs for their appearances are written out so I don't mix up my thoughts in the future. Feel free to add any hc's you might have involving the Blythe kids and their appearances!

[redplaidjacket]

This picture seen at the National Portrait Gallery in London in a section about WWI poets made me think of Walter Blythe.

[jomiddlemarch]

The Philosophy Inherent in Buttered Toast

Within a week of Shirley’s departure, Susan found that she could not fall asleep, no matter how much she exhausted herself; the windowpanes had never sparkled brilliantly so in the morning sunlight. She’d dare Miss Cornelia Bryant herself to find the smallest speck on the kitchen floor. She concocted impossible delicacies to try and tempt Mrs. Doctor, muttering under her breath about the various culinary restrictions and how she’d like to see anyone make a decent pie with the miserly amount of lard she was allotted, and she starched the Doctor’s collars so thoroughly he’d begged her to stop as he couldn’t turn his head when he drove out to see his patients, especially not that sharp curve onto the road over to the Lower Glen. Work, hard work that left her with a sore back and aching knees and hands too rough to get a pair of gloves onto for Sunday service, had always been a panacea, just as Mrs. Doctor had her garden and Mrs. Reverend had her needlework. 

Once Shirley left, after a brief kiss on her cheek and a little squeeze of her hand as she gave him a neatly tied up box lunch for the train, the week’s sugar ration used up in his favorite sweets, she turned her hand to the plow as it were and expected to find some respite. Instead she found herself lying in her narrow bed, a stripe of moonlight across the foot, her eyes burning, wide open. Her body longed for rest but her mind, her heart, her very soul itself would not allow it, as un-Christian a thought as that might be. She’d drift off in snatches in the early morning, wake with the fog of dreams, a confusion dispelled by the splash of water in the basin and the cold cloth scrubbed across her face. She felt every one of her years like a millstone and if she hadn’t already been plain Susan Baker since she’d outgrown the very little prettiness she’d had a child, someone, likely that outspoken Mary Vance, would have remarked that old Susan Baker looked quite poorly.

She began by reciting psalms to herself and then all her favorite hymns but it made no difference. Unlike Mrs. Doctor, she took no delight in watching the moon wax and wane and thought only a man could have come up with the constellations, the greatest waste of time she could think of and nothing but a lot of foolish nonsense. She took to drinking her tea as strong as she could steep it, nearly black. Coffee was too dear to waste and had to be saved for the Doctor. If he nodded off over his surgery, Susan Baker would be the one responsible for the poor soul under his knife’s untimely passing. She was comforted when Shirley enclosed a brief note addressed to Mother Susan in the letter he’d sent to his parents and sisters, but the relief of knowing him safe didn’t see her dozing in her rocking chair, let alone tucked up snug in her bed.

She remembered something Walter had once said, that there was poetry in the most ordinary things, how he’d gone on and on about a perfectly buttered piece of her toast, sliced just the right thickness, the butter spread smooth and even to the brown crust. She was known for her bread, that was common knowledge in Glen St. Mary, whether it was a white loaf or wholemeal, but she’d thought if she hadn’t loved Walter since he was a tot, she would have given a mighty sniff at his folderol. Now, though, she thought perhaps making a list of all the ordinary things that could be what Walter had called the marvelous quotidian before explaining his fancy words, perhaps making a list might take the place of counting the sheep that would never be sheared nor help her nod off.

To begin with, there was Walter’s buttered toast.

The hiss the iron made as she flicked a drop of water on it to test its heat.

The first even row of knots she threw on her needles beginning another sock in the ugly drab worsted that was military standard.

The last swipe of the cloth when she was polishing the good silver.

The greedy sound the Doctor made as he ate his slice of pie, one she would have scolded the children for making.

Winding the clocks.

Rilla’s little frown as she tried to feed her war-baby and got mashed peas all over the front of her clean white shirtwaist, a dab on her cheek.

Slipping on galoshes when it was a rainy morning.

The crinkle of the pages as she read her Bible chapter before bed.

Beans, bobbing about in the pot.

Una Meredith asking for help with her darning, her blue eyes round as buttons as she said Please, Miss Baker, the only one of the Meredith children to use a title for her.

Throwing out slops when the bucket was full.

Spools of thread lined up in her sewing basket.

Spoons, nestled tight against each other in their drawer.

The milk folding around itself in her chipped teacup like the sheets on the line in the wind.

Shirley’s way of writing the letter S, the same in her name as his own.

Fat blueberries in a bowl, waiting to be made into jam.

She began each night with Walter’s toast. Most nights, she fell asleep between the bean pottage and the slops arcing out onto the dirt. When it had been several days since they’d heard from Shirley or the papers were black with battles and casualty lists, the milk in the tea took the shape of Shirley’s cursive S. When there were letters from all three Blythe boys and the Meredith ones as well, the knitting needles fell from her hands, stitches most certainly dropped.

The night they’d learned about Courcelette, she’d counted each one of the blueberries in the bowl and wept.

And slept.

With many thanks to @batrachised who posted this summary of fake fic with this same title: Susan and Walter have a conversation about the poetry of everyday things. Susan still can't quite understand that poetry nonsense, but after Walter waxes eloquent about her perfectly ensembled toast that has just the right amount of butter scraped on top, she decides that surely a little of it is harmless enough - walter is Mrs. Doctor Dear's son, after all.

I hope my "borrowing" did the initial post justice! @gogandmagog I would have shared this today anyway, but I did love your encouragement post.

[freyafrida]

l.m. montgomery - the sea-shell

cannot exactly remember when or how, but at some point i was googling and found out from LMM Online that a line ken quotes to rilla ("a merry lilt o' moonlight for mermaiden revelry"), which is attributed to one of walter's poems, was in fact from another poem LMM wrote. said poem was not in TBAQ and i was too lazy to hunt down the collection it was actually published in, but tripped over it today. so technically this poem can be attributed to walter too, if you want to think of it that way

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: Anne of Green Gables First Lines

The icon of Canadian girlhood needs no introduction, as Anne of Green Gables is a global phenomenon at this point. What those of you who read the first book at like age ten and then didn't bother exploring further might not know, however, is that LM Montgomery wrote a whole Anne series. So how did she catch a reader's attention? Let's find out!

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof."

-- Anne of Green Gables

"A tall, slim girl, 'half-past sixteen,' with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil."

-- Anne of Avonlea

"'Harvest is ended and summer is gone,' quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily."

-- Anne of the Island

"(Letter from Anne Shirley, B.A., Principal of Summerside High School, to Gilbert Blythe, medical student at Redmond College, Kingsport.)

Windy Poplars,

Spook's Lane,

S'side, P. E. I.,

Monday, September 12th.

DEAREST:

Isn't that an address!"

-- Anne of the Windy Poplars 

"'Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,' said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky."

-- Anne's House of Dreams

"'How white the moonlight is tonight!' said Anne Blythe to herself, as she went up the walk of the Wright garden to Diana Wright's front door, where little cherry-blossom petals were coming down on the salty, breeze-stirred air."

-- Anne of Ingleside

"It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towards the village of Glen St. Mary."

-- Rainbow Valley 

"It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip."

-- Rilla of Ingleside

[sparrowsarus]

Walter and Susan; Or, When the Gates of Fairie are Shut

@gogandmagog since you were curious on the why.

When we think of Susan Pevensie, we think of a girl who became a queen; a girl who lost her kingdom, a girl who decided she wouldn't love anything who wouldn't bother loving her back.

We think of siblings betrayed--Lucy, hurt and confused by "Susan The Gentle" caring about boys, and lipstick; about Peter's short "Susan is no longer a friend to Narnia."

We think of a sensible girl, a doubting girl, a girl, not a woman, though she had to grow up twice over.

We think of "The Problem With Susan", a girl cast out of Narnia (Heaven; Salvation; call it what you will) for the crime of perceived femininity.

(So often we forget that Susan made a choice to leave.)

(Is it fair, how we think of Susan? I don't know.)

"There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over."

(Montgomery,L.M)

A girl: Just a girl, or a "silly, conceited young woman", who cared more about lipstick and boys than she did anything else--a girl who lost her entire family at the age of twenty-one.

Was it a punishment?

Was it a kindness?

It was a cruelty, regardless.

(Susan was Susan the Gentle, and don't tell me that wasn't a choice she made, every day she ruled.)

CS Lewis mentioned that Susan may find her own way back to Aslan's country; whether Susan would want to remains a mystery.

In contrast, we have Walter Blythe. The "hop out of kin", the dreamer, the coward (until he isn't.) The bard, the chronicler, the sacrificial lamb. Walter is not "sensible", or practical, or inclined to doubt (Note we are told he's a church member, while Jem Blythe isn't, despite being romantically linked with Minister's Daughter Faith, and isn't that interesting?)

Walter has to die in the Great War. There is no other future for him; this starry-eyed boy who knew he was signing up to die. Walter Blythe knows stories, knows he's in one, knows there's no happy ending.

Because even if had Walter lived, I do not believe the gossamer-fairy part of him would never have returned from France. Like Susan, he too would need to find Narnia on a longer, harder road, and there is no guarantee it would be the land he knew as a boy.

Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland."

The Piper called Walter, and there was no denying that call. Walter's way was set before him, and he could not stray; a different, harder path than he was promised as a boy. Walter is no exile; Walter chooses to leave, so others can take his place.

Walter dies, and everyone he loves lives.

Susan lives, and everyone she loves dies.

Now all that remains is:

Can they find their kingdoms again?

[choujinx]

NIJI NO TANI NO ANNE (2003) by lucy maud montgomery & hara chieko

[anneofgreengablesthings]

The L.M. Montgomery Literary Society posted this lovely photo of the three boys LMM dedicated Rainbow Valley to. It caused me to wonder who they were and what connection they had to Maud. I wrote a little bit of what I discovered below in honor of Veteran's Day/Rememberance Day. It seems they were members of the church her husband Ewan pastored in Zephyr. Maud and Ewan gave a going away dinner for the young men of their congregation and she wrote that her heart ached as she looked around the table at the young men they had come to know well.

Robert Brookes was the oldest of the three, at 32. Before leaving Canada, he left his farm to the care of his sister and her husband, and left documentation willing most of the land to them, as if he knew he would not return. Maud was close with him and his sister as they were close in age to her in a congregation of mostly young people or elderly. He took furlough to England, like Jims' father did. His sister wrote him there that she had a new baby daughter and he was thrilled to hear about his niece, writing "I want you to take good care of that little girl. I’m willing to go back and do my duty to the end, then when I come back she’ll be great company for me.” He returned to the front and was killed in the Third Battle of Ypres, reportedly while helping a wounded man to safety. He was quoted in local newspapers for his brave words, (link)and for how cheerfully he had given up his successful farm and went to defend his country. He was very close to his sister and wrote her many letters, similar to Walter and Rilla's relationship. His sister was understandably devastated. Maud remained close friends with her and supported her through this.

Maud ran an aid society and sent care packages to each soldier from Ewan's church. She was greatly incensed to receive a letter from a friend calling the war a "commercial" one. As a result of this she doubled down on her efforts to check on "the boys" and their families, becoming closest to these three.

Goldwin Lapp was just 22 when he was killed, and his parents bought a plaque at church "sacred to his memory" which Maud would later take inspiration from for Walter's plaque in Rilla.

Morley was a teacher who trained as a pilot, perhaps the inspiration for Shirley's flying. He was 23 when killed. His death was noted by LMM in her diary. Here is an article about that.

Most interesting of all, a member of the 116th battalion, mostly made up of Zephyr men, reported hearing a "bugler calling him" for years before the war and even wrote a poem about it. Perhaps this was inspiration for Walter's poem and premonition.

Sorry for the long post! I just found the tie-ins to Rilla and Rainbow Valley fascinating and wanted to share for anyone else interested. This website was a great source.