'It's a cow!': The death of Oatland Island's Jubilee recalls fond memory for reporter

Jubilee the cow at Oatland Island Wildlife Center held a special place in the hearts of many of the center’s employees, said Senior Animal Keeper Amanda Michael.

"I'd say as an Oatland resident, people know the cow and they know the donkey and they know their names," Michael said. "We've had a ton of well-wishes and sympathy, lots of people's hearts were devastated to hear of her passing."

Count my own family among those sad to hear the news that Jubilee had passed on July 12. The beloved bovine was a great source of joy and laughter for my wife, our three children and me for many years thanks to a fortuitous moment captured on my smartphone on Dec. 23, 2018.

'It’s a cow!'

Our oldest daughter Fable was 2 years old, was a new big sister to our youngest, Piper, and she struggled with her speech. As concerned parents, we had Fable practice speaking by identifying objects in the world around her everywhere we went.

On that day in December, we took our daughters and their big brother, Gavin, out to Oatland Island where we came upon the barn. I took out my phone to capture a video of Fable naming the barn animals.

What I recorded was one of the first full and clearest sentences she had ever spoken. Though the video quality may not be the best, my daughter's unfiltered verve in stating, “It’s a cow!” never fails to draw chuckles from anyone with whom we share the video. The moment has been engraved ever since into our family’s lore.

More important, the moment gave my wife and me significant relief as it confirmed that Fable could speak well, after all. She would not require speech therapy, though she would require extra effort on our part when it came to reading aloud and overall literacy. We are happy to say she has made tremendous gains the past few years and is reading at grade level as she enters the third grade this August.

Additionally, the spunkiness she exhibited in the video and her desire to speak on her terms has remained a constant of her personality. We were reminded of this beautiful moment as the news of Jubilee's passing was shared on local TV news stations' social media posts this past weekend. Coincidentally enough, we had been visiting a friend's farm in Macon, Georgia. While the farm did not have a cow, our children had been interacting with the other barnyard animals.

Beyond our fond moment of Jubilee, we had made a point to visit her during the center's annual Halloween Hike or when our children attended Oatland's summer camps or whenever we played tourists on the trails with visiting family and guests.

We are grateful to Jubilee for being a fixture in our family’s story as I am sure she has been for many other families and community members.

'A joy to be around'

Michael said Jubilee was a "joy to be around" and made work "really easy for everyone...for the most part." She did, however, love to tip over full wheelbarrows, according to Michael and Lesley Mailler, Oatland's veterinarian and supervisor of animal programs.

Jubilee, a Holstein dairy cow, was born in 2013. She came to Oatland Island in 2017 after she was retired by the University of Georgia and sold at auction. Her name came about do the energy she showed shortly after she arrived. "Back in her spry days, when she was 4, she was frolicking around down in the barnyard and somebody said she looks so joyous," said Michael. And so, she was dubbed Jubilee.

Throughout Jubilee's time at Oatland, she served to educate students about food and milk production. "It is amazing how many people don't know there's a disconnect between our food supply and the carton of milk in the refrigerator," said Mailler. She said the cow also taught veterinary interns "handling and restraint of such a big animal" especially with regard to studying her anatomy and where to draw blood for tests.

Michael clarified that Jubilee had not been sick, but rather had been dealing with an injury to her hip and back leg going on three years.

"We don't know how exactly that it happened," Michael said. "We just came in one morning and she was limping." At Jubilee's age and with arthritis setting in, Michael said the cow struggled with walking and bringing herself to a standing position. "So, we had to make the decision."

Since her passing, Michael and Mailler said stories similar to that of my family's have flooded social media and arrived via letters and emails. "From little children all the way up to the elderly, she [Jubilee] has been a very influential member of the family here."

Michael talked about how children were drawn to Jubilee, who was much larger than a typical dairy cow, which do not tend to live very long given what their bodies are put through on a dairy farm. "She was obviously the most impressive thing that they [children] could get real close to, and a lot of times she was at the fence and you could have a real interaction with her."

A real interaction, indeed. One that may come to define a core memory for a child and her family. As with so many aspects of life, it's never just a cow even when it is.

Rest in peace, Jubilee.

Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 'It's a cow!': The death of Oatland Island's Jubilee recalls fond memory for reporter