Hall of Fame
Sally Henry
by Helen Hatton
People who don’t know Sally Henry would be surprised to discover what lies beneath her quiet, relaxed manner. A Torontonian by birth, Sally graduated from University College at the University of Toronto in Household Economics (as it was know then) and continued studying at the University of Chicago. Her dietetic internship was at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and from 1947 to 1953, Sally was an administrative dietitien at Stratford and Niagara General Hospitals, and a therapeutic dietitien at Sunnybrook Hospital.
We asked Sally about those early years, and she said that while the basic job description was the usual- plan menus, supervise food preparation, check patients’ trays and teach nutrition – that anything could happen, and sometimes did. For instance…
In the kitchen all workers had to wear white bandanas, and Sally noticed that one young woman always wore a coloured scarf under her regulation white one. Sally approached her, asking about any problem with the hair, whereupon the young woman, a displaced person from the war in Europe, burst into tears and said she had bugs in her hair.
Sally’s first thought was “Not in my kitchen, you don’t”, and called the pharmacy to get the cure for head lice. The treatment was Larkspur lotion, applied after cutting off the hair. Sally contacted the head cook, rounded up a sheet and some scissors, and, as she said, frog-marched everyone out to the “back 40” to get cleaned up. Talk about rewriting the job description.
At Baker Advertising, now Baker Lovick Limited, Sally wrote advertising copy for Carnation Milk and the wide range of General Foods products that were serviced by the agency - the entire Jello and Baker chocolate group, Swans Down cake flour, and Minute Rice, among others. She was also part of the group involved in research and advice on Frigidaire, the Tea Bureau, Maxwell House coffee and the Post cereal group.
Sally remembers her first Jello shoot; the finished product had to be bubble-free. Period. To make sure there were no offending bubbles anywhere, Sally calmly admitted that she simply “boiled the bejeesus out of it”. She learned early at shoots to stand her ground, and usually, by 4 p.m. when the executives were still trying to make a change, would toss them out to finish the job herself. Sally said more than once, late in the shoot, she heard slightly awed male voices whispering, “Maybe we’d better leave; she does a great job, but she does have quite a temper!”
In what was essentially a very conservative advertising agency, Sally introduced the serving of “wake-up coffee” – Maxwell House, of course - to those who arrived early enough to take advantage of it. Some old-timers wondered just how management would like the idea, but it took hold and burgeoned, and where in the country will you not see the enduring evolution of this present custom that Sally helped to pioneer?
Sally went to Canada Packers in 1955 where one of her responsibilities was food preparation for the commercials shot in New York City. Listen to this schedule. Sally arrived Sunday night, and cooked all the meat for Monday’s shoot, and would get to bed well after midnight. She started Monday morning at 8, and worked all day until the shoot ended about 6 p.m. Sally then started cooking for the next day, and usually finished at 3 a.m. Back to the hotel, and up 4 hours later to “start” work. Continue this routine and finish Friday afternoon. Collapse.
There were other trips with Canada Packers; easier, perhaps, but in one case just a tad bizarre. The demo at an agricultural fair didn’t go exactly as planned. Sally set everything up ready to go, then went out for dinner. She returned at the last moment, walked out on stage and began talking about the recipe – bacon and cheese pie - only to look down and realize all the ingredients except the pastry dough had been snitched! Undaunted, our Sally simply went right on and mimed the entire demo. She said “eggs” and cracked and emptied imaginary ones. Other non-existing ingredients got poured and then stirred, and ultimately this invisible “finished” dish was placed in the oven. Sally said, “They might have been a bit confused at first, but the demo seemed to be a success.”
Sally went to Maple Leaf Mills in 1963, where her title was Director of the Home Service Bureau. “The place was really pretty straight-laced,” Sally said, “and I guess I livened things up a bit.” The director of research Joe Hulse, kept hearing gales and shrieks of laughter from Sally’s domain, and finally went in to find out what was so much fun. Lest you think this was all mirth and games, Joe was so impressed with Sally that when he became director of the International Development Research Centre, he asked Sally to work with him on several overseas projects.
Gertrude Stein once said “We were bored, so we went to Africa.” So off Sally went, loaded on a project basis to the Research Centre. Her work included a consumer preference study in Hyderabad, India, a triticale and leafy green vegetable project in Kenya, a grain utilization study in Ethiopia, and a minimum utilization study in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). We asked Sally just what she did at these places, and from the stories and anecdotes we heard, she couldn’t have slept much during those five important years. For instance, the mill in Nigeria was set up by a CUSO volunteer who didn’t know anything about quality control. Sally said that sacks of sorghum, maize and millet were arriving in all sorts of condition, the most common being mixed with gravel to add weight. Sally very quickly straightened this out!
With her Home Economics training, Sally also understood how vital it was to get out and talk to the women who bought the flour and find out exactly how it was used, and what kind of flour the women wanted. None of the men had thought to do this.
In Ethiopia, where Sally was able to go three times, she talked to women to find out what qualities they wanted for their griddle-baked “enjera” bread, and was successful in getting women to try making the enjera from sorghum and other grains, as a change from wheat.
In spite of her first arrival only 60 days after Haile Sellasie was deposed, she still managed to get around and see the country on weekends. Sally loved Ethiopia best, and I’m sorry we don’t have an evening to listen to her wonderful stories about this ancient kingdom and its people. Let me just give you a quick idea. While in Africa on these various trips, our Sally dined with local royalty, picked up body lice while sitting on a bale of hay at a shoe repair shop, got stranded – more than once- in the bush, and saw one of the earliest forms of recycling when she threw out a broken handbag one evening and found it reincarnated as three pairs of sandals in the market the next day.
You get Sally to tell the story about her rioting taxi drives at 2 a.m. in the Dakar, Senegal airport.
While the anecdotes and tales are fun, the main point was that Sally Henry’s work in Africa ultimately made a vital difference in the lives of thousands and thousands of people. Today, Sally still sponsors an Ethiopian child.
Back at Maple Leaf Mills, Sally made an important move into management, becoming a product manager in 1980, and group product manager in 1982. She retired from the company in 1988.
Sally’s incredible professional accomplishments include president of CHEA from 1968-1970, president of THEA in 1965-1966, a 37-year member of the Canadian Dietetic Association, president of the Women’s Advertising Club 1972-1973 and a long-term member of Ontario HEIB. In 1974, Sally received the prestigious CHEA Honour Award which recognizes qualities of integrity, scholarship, breadth of knowledge, experience, leadership and service to the community.
I love this one. Sally became Vice-Conseillere Gastronomique, Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs, and international gourmet group of the highest standing. You don’t just join this organization because you like food – you earn your way in by planning, creating and executing an extraordinary meal for the group.
It doesn’t stop there. Sally makes her own wine, and has even won awards. In fact, at one important tasting event, Sally and her fellow winemakers wanted to enter a category, but found they had nothing appropriate on hand to fit that group…I think we heard that it was sherry. Sally, ever resourceful, so the story goes…did some instant blending under the table with several wines on hand, and come up with a prize winner!
One of her most impressive community activities was serving on the Governing Council of the University of Toronto from 1975 to 1980. Sally was co-chair of the Home Economics Advisory Council at Humber College, and a member of the Ryerson Polytechnic Institute Advisory council.
She was editor of the best selling Laura Secord Canadian Cookbook, and we heard she somehow survived all the recipe testing by living on peanut butter sandwiches. And she found time to get very involved with the CHEA Metric Committee and the government metric commission groups on housewares and cookware.
Somewhere in all this, Sally kept up her French, taking total immersion private lessons to become bilingual, then finished the diploma course in French translation at the University of Toronto.
And Sally Henry just may be the most passionate Argo fan in all of Canada!
She obviously has a wonderful mind, and she is very capable with money and finance and numbers. Sally was the finance committee for CHEA in their worst days, and eventually straightened them out. I was on that committee, too, and marvelled at just how quickly Sally could see the solutions for so many of their money problems. And speaking of money, Sally, is the rumour true that you always practice blackjack for a couple of weeks before going to Las Vegas and cleaning up?
On a personal note, Sally Henry loves to travel, especially in convertibles. Get Sally to tell you about the car rallies with Carole Taylor; or the trip to Ottawa that time with the top down, and a very large furry bull strapped into the back seat. Or check with Marjorie Flint about the new wind-blown look after a fast trip back from Montreal. Sally has done Canada, most often with friends immediately after the CHEA conventions. Most of these must have been memorable trips. One fellow traveler reported that “Travelling with Sally, we always seemed to survive quite well on peanut butter sandwiches and beer”. She also always travels with a coffee percolator. Now this is a person whose priorities are in place! A fresh cup of coffee in the morning and, from the reports, Irish coffee by the fireside in the evening. Her organizational skills are so finely honed that it was reported she was able to find fresh whipped cream at night, in the most remote northern part of Newfoundland.
And this is a woman who was so angry at getting mugged in San Francisco that she fought back and won!
Sally is a serious bridge player. Her bridge club has apparently been together forever! It was just too bad when THEA meetings conflicted with bridge night!
An associate said that Sally Henry always did exactly what she wanted to do, without waiting for anyone. It was also said that she always wanted to do her very best, and she wanted to be the very best Home Economist there was. I think we will all agree that she succeeded magnificently.
Sally, we are delighted and honoured to welcome you to the OHEIB Hall of Fame.