Fans of Road to Avonlea may be interested to learn that the name “Stanley” was not conjured up in Montgomery’s imagination.  Before writing The Story Girl, the name already held great meaning.

Here is an excerpt from her journal, written on New Years Eve, 1898, in which she describes the story behind the name.

“I went over to Park Corner and stayed there until Saturday.  Ever since I can remember ‘going over to Aunt Annie’s’ has been a phrase that stood for a delightful jaunt.  To begin with, it was such a pretty drive, those winding thirteen miles of hill and wood, river and shore.  There are first the three miles through Cavendish and Bay View to the Bay View Bridge, spanning the pretty ‘Hope River’.  Three miles further on is Stanley, a pretty village on the banks of another river.  There are two or three stores in Stanley and we have always gone there to buy household supplies.  Stanley used to seem quite a town to my childish eyes.  It was the hub of the universe then—or of our solar system at the very least.  Beyond Stanley the road wound on to another little village—Clifton.  And here, around a certain corner, is a certain small, yellowish-brown house, close to the road , that I always look at with a kind of fascination, for it is the house where my father and mother lived after their marriage, and where I was born and spent the first year of my life.  The years have passed on and each succeeding one has left the little brown house something shabbier than before, but its enchantment has never faded in my eyes.  I always look for it with the same eager interest when I turn the corner…”