Lucy Maud Montgomery had three sons - Chester, Hugh - who died shortly after birth - and Ewan, who was named after her husband.  The boys were all born within four years of each other during the time in which Lucy Maud and Ewan, a Presbyterian minister, lived in Leaksdale, Ontario.  It was while she was raising her sons that Lucy Maud continued writing the succeeding Anne works and her other numerous novels.  As with all working mothers, Lucy Maud's typical grievances while raising her boys were often translated to her friend and penpal, G. B. MacMillan, who lived in Scotland.

In one particular instance Lucy Maud writes that Chester’s eye was injured and though it turned out not to be a serious injury, she didn’t know it at the time.  She wrote to MacMillan about her concern over having to have a doctor come look at his eye.  “Eventually, I may say right here, the injury proved to be trifling and transitory but at the time we did not know what it was and the doctor feared that the ball might have been punctured.  It was necessary to give C. chloroform in order to examine the eye.  Chester had never been given chloroform and I could not tell how it would affect him.  Reason told me that he would probably be all right but that did not prevent my nerves from going to pieces when the moment arrived.  I made Mr. Mcd. Go up with the doctor.  Once I could have gone but since my attack of ‘flu’ I have no nerve.  I could not go.  I stead, I shut myself in the parlor and sat down with clenched hands and with teeth on the rug to wait.”

Here, in a more official capacity, Maud writes about her love for her son, though we do not know which one, as he sleeps in her arms.  Her prose is proof of her motherly instincts and readers can see how it was expertly transferred to the pages of her novels whenever she wrote about motherly matters.

The Mother

Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping
Warm in my arms,
And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms,
As you lie close, close in my hungry hold . . .
Your hair like a miser's dream of gold,
And the white rose of your face far fairer,
Finer, and rarer
Than all the flowers in the young year's keeping;
Over lips half parted your low breath creeping
Is sweeter than violets in April grasses;
Though your eyes are fast shut I can see their blue,
Splendid and soft as starshine in heaven,
With all the joyance and wisdom given
From the many souls who have stanchly striven
Through the dead years to be strong and true.

Those fine little feet in my worn hands holden . . .
Where will they tread ?
Valleys of shadow or heights dawn-red?
And those silken fingers, O, wee, white son,
What valorous deeds shall by them be done
In the future that yet so distant is seeming
To my fond dreaming?
What words all so musical and golden
With starry truth and poesy olden

Shall those lips speak in the years on-coming?
O, child of mine, with waxen brow,
Surely your words of that dim to-morrow
Rapture and power and grace must borrow
From the poignant love and holy sorrow
Of the heart that shrines and cradles you now!

Some bitter day you will love another,
To her will bear
Love-gifts and woo her . . . then must I share
You and your tenderness! Now you are mine
From your feet to your hair so golden and fine,
And your crumpled finger-tips . . . mine completely,
Wholly and sweetly;
Mine with kisses deep to smother,
No one so near to you now as your mother!
Others may hear your words of beauty,
But your precious silence is mine alone;
Here in my arms I have enrolled you,
Away from the grasping world I fold you,
Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!

Source:  "My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery"