Alice Munro - Writing Her Lives

the landscape here,’ she says. ‘We go for long walks; they’re the most wonderful walks you can imagine.’ ” She is also quoted as remembering someone in her family, not herhusband, who supported her writing, saying when she was about thirty-one, “It’s time you recognized your limitations and quit this,” her writing. “But somehow I just had to ignore that and go on.”
    Another article that appeared in December 1998 was a long reminiscent piece in the
Wingham Advance-Times
by Margaret Stapleton called “Alice Munro – Friend of Our Youth.” Drawing on the memories and photographs of people who remembered Alice Laidlaw growing up in Wingham, Stapleton offers a hometown view of the town’s now most famous native. As this suggests too, Stapleton’s article reveals a considerable contrast in attitude from the early 1980s, when Munro, and her depiction of Wingham with its Lower Town section, met with public disapproval by many there. With the passing of time, far fewer Wingham-based references in the writing, and Munro’s vastly increased reputation in the literary world at home and abroad, things had changed between Munro and her hometown. The time was ripe for Wingham to more formally recognize Munro’s importance. As Ross and Carol Hamilton wrote to the
Advance-Times
in response to Stapleton’s article, “We who knew her and all those who live in her hometown cannot but feel a glow of pride in her accomplishments.” Very clearly a consensus was growing.
    The North Huron District Museum, along with the
Advance-Times
, began to work at collecting Munro-connected items for display. At the same time, the Wingham and District Horticultural Society, which was planning on erecting new signs along the roads leading into Wingham, was encouraged to add “Proud Hometown of Alice Munro” to the signs. This culminated after some time in the creation of the Alice Munro Literary Garden. The project was spearheaded by Verna Steffler, chair of the horticultural society, and Ross Procter, a local farmer, who served as the financial chair of the project; he had attended school with Munro. Steffler and Procter raised considerable funds for the garden locally, holding occasions referred to as “A.M. in the P.M.” These were get-togethers at Procter’s house. Munro would attend and give a little talk, and Procter would make a quiet pitch. With local support and a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, work on the garden began in April 2002 and was completed for the dedication on July 10, Munro’s seventy-first birthday.
    Since he had seen Stapleton’s article in late 1998, Gibson had been aware that things were happening in Wingham. Once the garden materialized, he was keen to help by inviting appropriate literary people to the dedication and by attending himself. Almost five hundred people were there on a beautiful summer day, Munro was resplendent in a hat given her by daughter Jenny and goddaughter Rebecca, and the press was out in force. Munro’s picture was on the front page the next day of both the
Globe and Mail
and the
National Post
, and the
Star
ran its story on the dedication under the witty, and apt, headline “Jubilation in Jubilee.” Gibson and Barber spoke, as did David Staines, editor of the New Canadian Library, and Jane Urquhart, novelist and friend. At the local theatre each read from a favourite Munro story and talked about their associations with Alice, after which Munro read from one of her stories. A garden luncheon followed on the lawn. Among the contributors listed in the program was Munro’s Books.
    Avie Bennett, chairman and publisher of McClelland & Stewart and a good friend of Munro’s, spoke at the earlier dedication at the sunlit garden and was quoted saying “Alice is one of the finest writers this country has ever known. She is also notorious for saying no to public attention. It is a frustrating business trying to give Alice Munro the attention she deserves.… How did Wingham manage to succeed where so many have failed?” Barber, who made her first trip to Wingham for the occasion, said this in her remarks:
    I’ve known Alice Munro for many years and have seen her hesitations about her own work, her many revisions, her modesty and humility if you wish. She works on several stories at once, maybe putting two aside to look at later and grappling with the third on a particular day. She often sends me three stories at once, and on one occasion she called me in