MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 20, 2022
One afternoon in Portland in 1837, an angry Bracket Street School student threw a rock that struck a 9-year-old classmate’s face, sending the girl into a coma from which few expected her to recover. No one in 1837 suspected the unfortunate event would lead to the establishment of America’s earliest vegetarian food companies or to today’s proliferation of vegan meats. But it did. The 9-year-old Maine native survived and grew to be the internationally regarded Christian leader Ellen Gould Harmon White, whose profound and lasting influence on vegetarian food continues today.