Happy Birthday, Marian Walker
December 2011: Vegan Activist Is Going Strong and Celebrating 90th Birthday
In 1931, nine-year-old Marian Walker, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, decided not to eat the flesh of animals.
It all started at an uncle's farm: “I saw him slaughter those pigs and decided I wasn’t eating any of that!”
Marian later witnessed the beheading of chickens at the family home.
“It was awful; chickens would run around with no head, blood coming out..” The last meat Marian ate was tinned salmon.
"You'll die if you don't eat meat!" warned one uncle, shaking an angry finger in the youngster's face. It must have been daunting. Marian had never met another vegetarian.
Then one day, as a teen, Marian encountered a health-food shop which happened to stock vegetarian newsletters, which included commentary about the impact of animal farming on the environment, human health, and the animals themselves. Marian felt empowered.
At college, Marian was the lone vegetarian, getting by with Mother's help: care packages of nuts and dried fruits.
Marian married in 1942. When a doctor refused to deliver Marian's first child, citing the vegetarian diet, a new doctor was found in time for the birth.
"In the early days, some restaurants refused to serve you," says Marian, recalling managers who would not even accept an order for a plain baked potato because it strayed from the listed, complete menu items.
To this day, vegetarians might face practical jokes, get tricked into eating animal products, or receive nasty receptions, but Marian was never to be deterred.
Marian Walker has now been a vegan for more than 32 years, and has facilitated well over 20 years of vegan barbecues at CARE's annual VeggieFest in Hoopes Park, West Chester, Pennsylvania. CARE stands for Compassion for Animals, Respect for the Environment. The annual festival raises most of the organization's small operating budget and pays for its newsletter, outreach fees for other events, and insurance.
CARE also does some work with Friends of Animals, an international organization. The group became a co-plaintiff on a lawsuit against Valley Forge National Historical Park to prevent the shooting of deer there. Working together, the groups stopped deer management in the Park in the winter of 2009-10.
Marian, who drives and is active in the Quaker community as well as in animal-rights work, also attends the North American Vegetarian Society's annual vegan Summerfest event every year: "I'm out having a good time."
But a vegan’s influence on resource conservation is a serious matter, and Marian addresses the politic forthrightly. "There are places where people don't get as much clean water in a day as we use in a single toilet flush," says Marian.