Harbron, Sarah Lilliane

• Peace, Sarah Lilliane

Sarah Lilliane Harbron, dietician, graduated from Lillian Massey in 1912 and was a pupil of Ms Violet M. Riley. She was one of the first college-trained dietitians (University of Toronto) in Ontario. She served as an organizing dietitian during the First World War in the Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment Commission, Department of Militia, for returned and crippled soldiers in military hospitals. Harbron also supervised the menus for all of the Military Hospitals Commission’s western Canadian units.

In 1917, Harbron opened the first working women’s cafeteria in Toronto in the old YWCA building in downtown Toronto which was used by young business women. In mid-1918 she established the YWCA’s national working camps for women workers on farms. In 1921, she married Tom Harbron who she met in 1917 at Knox College building on Spadina Avenue which had been converted into a military hospital.

During the Second World War, she was the Director of the National Board of the YWCA and helped the organization of the Farm Service Force camps for teenage girls who were harvesting crops in the Niagara Peninsula. She continued to be an active member of the North Toronto YWCA Board.

Harbron also served as the first woman alternate delegate to the Toronto Synod of the church of England and in 1954 she was vice chairman of the advisory council.

2017/08/04 KCP. Created.
2018/08/01 KCP. Added biographical sketch.

• English