Sheila (Catto) Pennington

On April 8, 1932 the Toronto world was gifted with a baby girl, Sheila Catto Pennington. Through the years Sheila grew into a brilliant, highly educated person, completing her B.A., B.Ed. and M.Ed. degrees at the University of Toronto.  Additionally, during her university career she won the Miss Toronto Teacher’s College Award and was a cheerleader for Varsity U of T.

Sheila also became an accomplished classical ballet dancer.  Starting formal dance lessons at the age of 6, she was eventually asked to join the National Ballet of Canada by Celia Franca.  She also danced for seven years as a member of the famous Canadettes at the CNE Grandstand show (often referred to as Canada’s answer to New York’s Rockettes).

Sheila married Toronto lawyer Arthur Pennington.  They had two children, Ann and Alex, both of whom established successful careers, raising three and two children respectively.  Sheila and Arthur eventually split up and she remarried Toronto insurance executive Ben Harrison.

She continued her academic career, completing a Ph.D. in psychology, majoring in psychotherapy at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Education. Her academic career evolved into a very successful 35-year professional practice (Centre for the Healing Arts Inc.) as a prominent psychotherapist in Toronto.

Based on her very popular and widely read University of Toronto doctoral thesis, Sheila wrote and published two best-selling books, including Healing Yourself Understanding How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body.

Subsequently Sheila and her husband Ben wintered for 15 years in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Eastern Caribbean, during which time she was a graduate student lecturer at the University of the West Indies in St. Vincent.

For some time, Sheila had been interested in, when the time came, choosing a place and time for ending her life in her way. She was convinced that time was approaching and several months ago, and started making plans accordingly. This evolved into a peaceful and comfortable end-of-life on February 24 after a period of several months withdrawing from the intake of food.

The world lost an important person early in the morning of February 24th.

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