Leslie | Betrayal Weekly

Maryanne grew up in Ontario, Canada, in a storybook town called Grimsby.

Grimsby's about as close to Stars Hollow as you can get in real life, and especially in the 1970s.

It was fruit orchards, cherry trees, peach trees, canneries.

The kinda town where everybody knows you.

They know your name at the supermarket.

And it felt safe and orderly.

She lived in an old historic house with her brother, sister, parents, and grandmother.

My bedroom was pink, and it was the whole front of the house.

And I had my own balcony, and the view from my balcony was of Lake Ontario and the newly constructed CN Tower.

Their yard was dotted with cherry trees.

I used to go sit in the cherry trees, pick them, and then go up to my balcony and eat them.

Her friends' houses were filled with framed family portraits and neat piles of books.

Maryanne's childhood home, on the other hand, looked a little different.

Her dad, Gene, collected unusual antiques.

We had a real live honest to God sarcophagus in our family room.

We had a real authentic medieval suit of armor.

We had a tarantula encased in glass.

They were the kinds of things that could give a kid nightmares, but she found ways to befriend them.

I would go to bed, and I would always conjure up these stories about how the mummy princess would come after us because she didn't want to be in our living room, but the knight would save us from her.

Her house transformed into a fantasy world, one ruled by Maryanne's imagination.

For most of her childhood, her older sister Margot was at boarding school, so Maryanne spent her days with her older brother Brad.

Brad and I were thick as thieves.

We did absolutely everything together.

We used to roam the town like free range kids.

We'd go on these epic bike rides.