Local history: Militant vegetarian Nellie Shriver couldn't hurt a fly

Nellie Shriver ate her last hamburger in 1967.

“I really loved meat,” she confided years later.

The Akron woman hadn’t really considered alternatives until she met a college professor on a strict vegetarian diet. At first, Shriver thought it was pretty funny, calling him a “pig lover.”

But the more Shriver thought about vegetarianism, the more it appealed to her. She started feeling guilty about eating meat. So she became a pig lover, too. And a cow lover. And a chicken lover.

In fact, she couldn’t even hurt a fly.

Shriver became a leader in the U.S. vegetarian movement in the 1970s, publishing newsletters, coordinating protests, pressuring food makers and appearing on TV shows.

“The knowledge of suffering is the first step toward becoming a vegetarian,” she once told the Beacon Journal. “There is a soul in all creation. And the animals’ suffering is magnified by their inability to communicate.”

Vegetarian grew up in Akron

Nellie Louise Bertsch, the third of eight children, was born Aug. 24, 1942, to Leonard and Nellie S. Bertsch. She grew up in a home at 1211 W. Market St. during the 1950s.

Nellie graduated from St. Vincent High School in 1960 and earned a degree in history from Ohio State University in 1963. Two years later, she married IBM computer analyst Ross Shriver Jr., a widower with two children: Julia and David.

Unabashedly liberal, Nellie Shriver protested the Vietnam War, adopted a vegetarian lifestyle and advocated animal rights. In 1969, she co-founded Animal Aid Inc., a nonprofit rescue, with former members of the Humane Society of Akron. In 1970, she established the Akron Vegetarian Union.

“We felt most people who are vegetarians keep it pretty much to themselves and we ought to tell people what we are,” Shriver explained. “Ordinary Christian teaching leads you into this, following the commandment ‘Thou Shall Not Kill.’ We want to let people know that meat comes from killing.”

She liked to wear a T-shirt around town: “BE KIND TO ANIMALS. DON’T EAT THEM.”

Much to the consternation of neighbors, Shriver began rescuing dogs from the pound and bringing them home to Madrid Drive at Parkway Estates in the Merriman Valley.

In 1970, Akron health officials charged her with violating a new ordinance that required residents who owned more than three pets to obtain a permit. At the time, she had 20 dogs, eight cats and five kittens.

She challenged the city in court and won! Akron Municipal Judge Harry Van Berg dismissed the case, saying the ordinance was too vague and gave legislative powers to a health director.

Shriver’s group, renamed American Vegetarians, claimed 6,000 members by 1972 and became increasingly vocal. She picketed fast-food restaurants and 4-H exhibits and ox roasts.

At the World Series of Golf in Akron, Shriver confronted Arnold Palmer near the 15th green.

“Wouldn’t you like to get rid of all animal fat in your system and feel better?” she asked the golfer. “Eating meat will just kill you. All that fat. Have you ever seen a fat 80-year-old?”

“You might have something there, ma’am,” Arnold said before moving on.

Shriver appeared on the TV talk shows of Mike Douglas, Phil Donahue and Tom Snyder as well as “Today” and “Good Morning America.”

Her group won national attention when it sued Oscar Mayer over its famous jingle: “Oh, I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener. That is what I’d truly like to be. ’Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me.”

Shriver denounced it as false advertising, saying no one truly wanted to be a wiener.

“The ad makes a mockery of the intense suffering that Oscar Mayer visits on 1,100 pigs per hour,” she said. “We feel that though the suit might appear flippant on the surface, the entire meat industry would like you to forget about slaughterhouses.”

She also battled StarKist over its “Charlie the Tuna” ads featuring the famous slogan  “Sorry, Charlie!”

“Could anyone believe even a tuna would go willingly to the slaughter?” she asked.

Shriver’s group didn’t win in court, but was happy to share its message with a wider audience.

Activist refused to mow yard

Around that time, Shriver got in hot water again with Akron. Madrid Drive neighbors complained that the family had stopped mowing the lawn. After seeing a butterfly’s severed wing on a mower, Shriver realized that insects and small animals couldn’t get out of the way of a whirling blade.

“It bothered me that I was killing to satisfy the so-called standards of the community,” she said.

So she let nature reclaim the property. The Akron Health Department ordered her to clean up the yard in 1973, calling it a “rat harborage.”

“I have my own little jungle here and I don’t see why I have to change it,” Shriver fumed.

Summit County Common Pleas Judge Theodore Price toured the property and sided with health officials. A city crew mowed the yard in April 1974.

“I was so angry I cried,” Shriver said. “The main reason we let the yard grow wild was to protect the birds and crawling creatures. You can’t mow without killing thousands of creatures. They have violated my religion.”

She sued the city for $80,000 in federal court, and settled for $500.

Try as she might, Shriver couldn’t persuade her parents or siblings to convert to a vegetarian lifestyle. Her sister Kathy Bertsch explained it was because “we are all stubborn pains.”

That made family gatherings awkward. “Thanksgivings could be hell,” Bertsch said.

One year as Shriver complained about the carnage on the plates, brother Leonard threatened to go outside and tear the legs off ants. Shriver was so outraged that she kicked over his motorcycle.

“A joyous occasion was had by all,” Bertsch said.

Shriver constantly kept an eye on the ground to make sure she didn’t trample insects. She wouldn’t drive anywhere where she might have to roll across grass.

“As my brother Leonard used to say, when she drove on Akron-Peninsula or Riverview, she went so slow that she was killing the mosquitoes behind her that were slamming into her window,” Bertsch said.

In 1975, Shriver moved to Washington, D.C., explaining “that’s where the world’s food policy is made.” Settling in Takoma Park, Maryland, she adopted Hindu practices, became a follower of Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba and changed her name to Saiom Shriver.

Over the decades, Shriver’s diet became more restrictive. She switched from vegetarianism to veganism to fruitarianism.

“She would only eat plants that ‘gave their seeds voluntarily,’ ” Bertsch said.

In Washington, Shriver started the Fruitarian Network and promoted “plant liberation.”

“I think we all have a double standard when it comes to plants,” Shriver told an interviewer in 1979. “We nurture some, and others we take in the kitchen and hack to death. Plants have consciousness or feelings along with animals, and they suffer when killed.”

That included grass. The group made headlines in the 1980s when it called for an end to lawn mowing.

“We believe grass has some sort of consciousness,” Shriver said. “It has feelings.”

Shriver volunteered with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, denounced seal hunting in Alaska and led a boycott of a fast-food chain that sold a veal parmigiana sandwich.

She returned to Akron in the 1980s, focusing on spirituality, animal advocacy and poetry writing. She remained a fruitarian, subsisting on fruits, nuts and beans.

“We honestly thought she might live forever,” Bertsch said.

But Saiom Shriver died Jan. 12, 2023, at Copley Health Center after a long illness. She was 80 years old.

She was preceded in death by her husbands, Ross Shriver and John Lehman, her parents, Leonard and Nellie, and her siblings Clara Katherine and Leonard Jr. Survivors include her siblings Nancy Lynch, Susan Cull, Janet Offutt, David Bertsch and Kathy Bertsch, and spiritual companion Don Wilson.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. May 6 at Boston Township Hall, 1775 Main St., Peninsula. Donations can be made in Shriver’s name to the library of your choice.

In further memory of Nellie Shriver, please be careful where you step.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Nellie Shriver of Akron was leader in 1970s vegetarian movement