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Due to a delay in the arrival of the granite pedestal, the unveiling of the Statue of Emily the Cow must be rescheduled, again.
Date and time to be announced. Please pass the word.
Last Updated: March 8, 2005 |
January 16, 2005
Upstate New York Times Herald-Record
EVEN AFTER DEATH, EMILY STILL ELUSIVE
By Ben Montgomery
Rock Tavern – Men are working everywhere. Men in white suits that look like grown-up pajamas. Men in masks and bandannas. Men with grinders, with saws and sanders; men with pencils planted behind their ears; men in the process of creating.
In the middle of this gigantic factory beside Route 17K, in the middle of all these men, is a cow named Emily who is late for a party.
Way late. Twenty-two days.
She should have been there Christmas Eve. Sixty people at The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Mass., were waiting for her in the cold, with jackets and camcorders, near a bronze statue of Ghandi, in a special place called the Scared Cow Animal Rights Memorial.
Why isn't Emily here? the children wondered.
Hold that thought.
NINE YEARS AGO, in November of 1995, Emily the cow was packed in a stinky shed with her herd at a slaughterhouse in Hopkinton, Mass. She watched as her companions disappeared through a set of doors in front of her, never to return. If cows can contemplate, Emily must have figured it out: She was next.
Ahead was death by bovine butcher. Sirloin. Hamburger. Chopped liver.
Someone's meal.
Behind was freedom – in the form of a 5-foot gate.
Emily chose the latter.
According to newspaper accounts of the escape, the 1,600-pound Holstein sailed over the gate and disappeared into the woods, udders flopping, stunned men scrambling to catch up.
In the days that followed, Emily became a legend.
The slaughterhouse staff tried to entice the 3-year-old heifer back into her fate with bales of hay. No dice.
Folks across the rural community west of Boston would report Emily sightings to the local press. She was seen here, then there, then foraging in the forest with a herd of deer.
But soon the sightings dried up. Seemed folks wanted Emily to make it out there in the world.
Word spread like stink at a feedlot. A group of hippies caught wind and called the guy who owned the slaughterhouse. Impressed by the whole deal, the fella offered to sell Emily to the hippies for a buck.
After 40 days and 40 nights on the biblically timed lam, Emily revealed herself to Meg Randa, a vegan, activist Quaker who owned a beautiful, harmonious place called The Peace Abbey with her husband, Lewis. They bought Emily a barn with amenities like a TV and VCR. She lived in heifer happiness.
People magazine covered Emily's story. So did Parade and a few TV stations. Someone wrote a children's book, someone bought rights to the moo-vie.
Then Emily died. Last March.
Cancer.
The folks at The Peace Abbey couldn't just let her go, so they commissioned a bronze life-sized statue of Emily – reportedly for around $100,000. She would stand in the Sacred Cow Animal Rights Memorial, near the statue of Ghandi, between plaques that read "Cow protectionism is Hinduism's gift to the world" and "Wars kill animals, too."
Sculptor Lado Goudjabidze was hired to create Emily in clay. Metallurgist Dick Polich would handle the rest. She would be unveiled at a ceremony on Christmas Eve, marking the day in 1995 when Emily was brought to The Peace Abbey.
CHRISTMAS EVE CAME and went. Emily was a no-show. The folks at The Peace Abbey sort of expected that.
"It's like Emily is embodied in the statue," Ernie Karhu told the Dover-Sherborn Press. "It was always in her nature to be elusive. She'll come in her own time."
On a cold day in January, 185 miles away in Rock Tavern, N.Y., a bronze Emily still stood in Dick Polich's foundry.
Something stalled on the artists' end, says Chris McGrath of Polich Art Works. "But," she says, "we're not going to point fingers."
Either way, the cow is nearly finished. Maybe by the end of the month.
"We're close," Polich says. "We still have to attach the birds and some flowers."
A set of lights on a stand shine down on Emily in the middle of this huge building, in the middle of all these men working to get her finished. Her eyes are bronze, untarnished, and she looks like she has seen things.
She looks like she'll move when she wants to.
Dover Sherborn Press
Peace Abbey honors its Sacred Cow
By Ray Hainer/ Correspondent
Thursday, December 30, 2004
SHERBORN - At noon on Christmas Eve, while many folks were travelling or shopping frantically for last-minute gifts, dozens of people flocked to the Peace Abbey for a look at a bronze cow.
That is, they came to see the unveiling of a large bronze statue of Emily the cow, a longtime resident of the Peace Abbey considered a sacred animal, a symbol for vegetarianism and a cherished pet by many at the multifaith retreat center. The unveiling never occurred - the foundry in Newburgh, N.Y., that is casting the statue is behind schedule - but a spirited tribute to the cow was held anyway.
Emily, who died of cancer last March, became a minor celebrity of sorts nine years ago, when she escaped from a Hopkinton slaughterhouse and survived in the surrounding woods for 40 days and 40 nights. Lewis and Meg Randa, the directors of the Peace Abbey, bought Emily from the slaughterhouse for $1 after seeing news reports of her escape, and brought her to the Peace Abbey on Christmas Eve 1995.
Although Lewis Randa said the Peace Abbey was deeply disappointed to learn that the statue was not ready, its absence did not seem to diminish anyone's enthusiasm for the event. In fact, as one member of the Peace Abbey pointed out, the late arrival of the statue was only fitting for a cow who played by her own rules.
"It's like Emily is embodied in the statue," said Ernie Karhu. "It was always in her nature to be elusive. She'll come in her own time."
Unfazed by the delay - or the frigid weather - a group of 60 people crowded onto a circular brick-and-granite path known as the Sacred Cow Animal Rights Memorial. Adults with camcorders and young children in colorful jackets and scarves huddled together on the memorial, located just a few yards from a memorial to pacifism which features a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of Gandhi.
At the center of the Animal Rights Memorial is a large granite slab that marks Emily's grave and will eventually serve as the base for her bronze likeness. On Friday, the slab was draped for the occasion in a sacred blanket from India that Emily used to wear, and was also dotted by several photos and other small ornaments. A small metal censer sat on the ground nearby, steadily emitting puffs of aromatic smoke.
The ceremony was a casual, free-form affair: memories of Emily were shared, mottoes from plaques that adorn the Animal Rights Memorial were read aloud ("Cow protectionism is Hinduism's gift to the world," "Wars kill animals, too"), and a prayer written specially for the occasion was recited.
Meg Randa recalled the moment, nine years ago to the day, when she and her husband first brought Emily to the Peace Abbey.
"As the trailer turned into the driveway, she just kind of threw her head out the side of the trailer and locked eyes with that Gandhi statue," Randa said. "I realized we were really bringing a sacred cow to the Peace Abbey."
Yogendra Jain, a follower of Jainism, an Indian faith which holds that all living things have a soul, led the gathering in a prayer for peace. Afterwards, he used a small silver bowl and pestle to sprinkle water from the Ganges River over Emily's grave, a small bronze replica of the statue and the heads of the crowd.
And on a different note, Ali Koehler, a student at the Peace Abbey's Strawberry Fields school, sang "Emily," a wistful song from the film "The Americanization of Emily," a 1964 comedy set during World War II starring James Garner and Julie Andrews.
Throughout the wide variety of tributes, the impact Emily had on those who knew her was evident, as was her importance to the Peace Abbey.
"Emily, never having given birth, bonded with people the way she would have bonded with her offspring," Lewis Randa said at one point. "We were blessed to be her offspring, in a certain sense."
The ceremony may well have heightened the anticipation for the statue among those who attended, but they are not likely to be disappointed when it finally does arrive. The statue, which has a price tag of nearly $100,000, will stand 6 feet tall and will measure 8 feet from nose to tail.
"It will just take your breath away," Meg Randa told the crowd Friday. "It's the second-best thing to having Emily here."
The Randas said that they hope the statue will be delivered by the end of January. They are considering holding an unveiling sometime around Valentine's Day.
METROWEST DAILY NEWS
Emily Statue Delayed but not Forgotten
By Jon Brodkin / News Staff Writer
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Lewis Randa of the Peace Abbey holds up a model of the Emily the Cow statue.
(Marshall Wolff photo)
SHERBORN -- The Peace Abbey wanted to cancel yesterday's Christmas Eve tribute to Emily the Cow. The $98,000 statue of what some consider a "sacred" bovine wasn't ready for its unveiling and so people at the Abbey figured it was better to wait.
But when Peace Abbey founder and director Lewis Randa started calling people involved in the ceremony to tell them it was off, they insisted that it go on without the statue, he said.
"We did our best to cancel this but couldn't," Randa told a group of more than 50 Emily lovers gathered at her gravesite for a noontime ceremony.
Nine years ago, Emily escaped a slaughterhouse in Hopkinton by jumping a five-foot fence, and then evaded capture for 40 days before being bought by Randa and his wife, Meg, for $1. For many, she became a symbol of and reason to practice vegetarianism.
She died of uterine cancer in March of last year. The next month, some of her hair and blood was dropped in the Ganges River in India, where cows are considered sacred.
The Peace Abbey, a multifaith center that also has statues of Gandhi and Mother Teresa, expected to unveil a six-by-eight-foot bronze statue of the cow yesterday, the ninth anniversary of the day Emily arrived at the Peace Abbey.
The statue was expected to arrive two weeks ago, but was held up by a delay at a foundry in Newburgh, New York.
"We were devastated to learn the statue would not be here," Lewis Randa said, expressing hope it will arrive before Valentine's Day.
Some Peace Abbey members chose to view the delay as only fitting, given Emily's success in avoiding capture when she was a young cow on the lam.
"It's just like the Emily story," said Ernie Karhu.
"She'll be found when she wants to be found," Marylyn Rands asserted.
Emily's grave, where yesterday's ceremony was held, is named the Sacred Cow Animal Rights Memorial. A plaque on the gravestone says, in English and Hindi, "Wars kill animals too."
During the ceremony, water from the Ganges was sprinkled onto Emily's grave, a prayer and song for Emily were recited, and the cow's admirers related stories about her.
Meg Randa said she first knew they had a "sacred" cow when the trailer with Emily pulled into the Peace Abbey.
"She kind of threw her head out of the trailer and locked eyes with that Gandhi statue," Randa said.
From the beginning, Emily's story struck a nerve with people. After she escaped the slaughterhouse, people in Hopkinton helped her on her way, in part by leaving hay bales out for her to eat, Randa said.
"She managed to touch the hearts of people in Hopkinton," she said. "They kind of supported her by forming what we came to know as an underground railroad that kept her safe."
Emily was described as a friendly, people-oriented cow, and was credited with helping a volunteer who broke his hip while doing chores at the Peace Abbey. The volunteer, Corty Woods, was taking care of the animals about two years ago when he slipped on some ice. No one could hear his calls for help, except for Emily, who began bellowing so loudly that someone came out to help Woods, Meg Randa said.
"He kept saying 'Emily saved my life,' " Randa said "She really was extraordinary in that way."
METROWEST DAILY NEWS
In America: 'O come all ye faithful to unwrap Emily'
By Miryam Wiley
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Meg Randa remembers a day at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn when an 18-month-old baby was lost and the mom was panicking.
Everyone was moved when the baby was found inside the fence with Emily the cow, who was licking the baby's head right by her feet. Of course the cow could have stepped on the baby, but she didn't.
"Emily was a supreme being," says Randa.
Emily is the cow who jumped over a 5-foot fence, escaped the slaughter house and after weeks wondering around Hopkinton, was eventually bought by the Randas, the leaders of the Peace Abbey, and brought to live there. Over the years she proved to be more than a cow and became a symbol of compassion.
Now, on Dec. 24, even if some of us are worn out and overspent in more ways than one, there is chance of renewal at a ceremony to honor Emily the Cow on the grounds of the Peace Abbey.
The event is scheduled at noon Christmas Eve day. A bronze statue to honor the cow that lived there for eight years will be unveiled on what will be called the Sacred Cow Animals Rights Memorial.
Emily's statue was created by Lado Goudjabidze, from Long Island City, N.Y., the same artist who sculpted both the Gandhi and the Mother Theresa statues at the Abbey. The new statue will be delivered from the foundry on Dec. 20. This date commemorates the ninth anniversary of the very day the Randas read about her in the paper and decided it was their call to adopt her.
Christmas Eve was the night the Randas were actually able to persuade her to trust them and get into a trailer that brought her home.
"We see it as a form of synchronicity," said Meg Randa. "With all the commercialism and the hubbub about Christmas, what a wonderful way to unwrap this beautiful Christmas present. It feels to us that Emily is coming back to us on Christmas Eve."
Lewis and Meg Randa made the news when they decided to adopt the cow that escaped the slaughter house. Now they seem ready to take the world's reaction to their latest gesture to include Emily once again.
"To most people it probably seems absurd that we are bringing a statue of a cow to the Peace Abbey, but Emily had a very deep connection with people," said Meg Randa. "She looked you in the eye and changed you. It is hard to put it into words."
For Lewis Randa, Emily's significance is one of a saint.
"Erecting a statue of a cow surely seems strange if you didn't know Emily, but not all that odd if you understand the significance of the Sacred Cow in the East," he said. "In the West, it is customary to see statues of saints at Abbeys. We at the Peace Abbey know something about Emily that others don't, but soon will. The animal kingdom, to no surprise, produces saints too, that is if we don't kill and eat them first."
The statue of Emily will be 6 feet tall and 8 feet long. Placed over Emily's grave on the grounds of the Peace Abbey, this memorial will match the style of the existing Peace Memorial, with many quotes of note from famous vegetarians, such as Henry David Thoreau: "I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals."
And Albert Einstein: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Meg Randa said that at the ceremony they will tell the story of how Emily arrived at the slaughter house, then spent 40 days and 40 nights walking around with the deer until she was found and tamed.
"The bovine serves to remind us that all life is sacred, and that all animals hold greater value to the world than being a source of food," said Lewis. "Emily's life story challenges us to include the rest of God's creatures in the circle of compassion."
Emily's distinction won't end at this. Her life story will also be the subject of a film already in progress to be done in Canada. But for now, it's in real life that she will be remembered and celebrated, not only for what she brought to people, but to encourage political views and attitudes toward the whole world.
Lewis said, if Mother Teresa traveled from India to visit the Abbey in '88, it seems strangely appropriate that a few years later Emily would come along. She and Mother Teresa were highly evolved beings from two different species from the same part of the world. The Sacred Cow Memorial will bless people who visit beyond anything they could imagine. That is if they're evolving toward greater compassion, love and peace in their lives.
( Miryam Wiley's e-mail is inamericacolumn@yahoo.com. )
Emily the Cow
Escaped from Slaughterhouse
November 14, 1995
Entered Abbey Sanctuary
December 24, 1995
Passed to Greener Pastures
March 30, 2003
Buried behind Gandhi Statue
April 2, 2003
Dedication of the SACRED COW - Animal Rights Peace Memorial
December 24th (Christmas Eve at noon)
Left: Model of life-size bronze statue of Emily that will
be unveiled at the Abbey at her burial site located behind
the statue of Gandhi. It will be at the center of the
newly-created SACRED COW Animal Rights Peace Memorial.
Those interested in serving on the Memorial
committee or contributing financially are encouraged to
contact the Abbey office at 508-655-2143.
Emily served as a loving symbol of courage,
inner wisdom and survival to thousands of people who came
to know and love her. She encouraged many to embark on
the road to vegetarianism and cruelty-free living while
inspiring people to appreciate the sacredness of all life.
Emily's gentle and loving nature imbued us all with a
better understanding and respect for all creatures with
whom we share this planet. This is her legacy. Emily's
spirit will live on in the hearts of minds of those who
were touched by her grace and beauty.
Hair clippings from Emily's markings on her forehead and
from the tip of her tail, traces of her blood and a piece
of golden thread (placed through Emily's ear by Hindu
priest Krishna Bhatta of the Lakshmi Temple) were released
into the holy river Ganges in the city of Benares, India.
Abbey members Bram and Elizabeth DeVeer organized and
assisted the Temple priest in this traditional sacred
cow ritual on the Ganges River in April 2003.
Right: Sri. M. Bairava Sundram from Sri Laksmi Hindu Temple
in Ashland, MA blesses Emily's grave.
Taken from
Chapel Prayer Book
April 4, 2003
Emily, I did not know you. You were in the hospital when
I visited the Abbey for the first time.
Today I felt your presence in Lewis remembering you. I
saw and touched and smelled your blanket from India and
I visited your grave. I will return to the Abbey with
children, one will be named Emily.
In the mean time and forever, may God bless abundantly
everyone who knew you and learns of you in the future
and bless all whom they know and will know until this
blessing includes everyone who has lived, is living or
will be living in the entire world. Namaste, Cecilia Gilchrest
Lewis
has asked me to set down some of my thoughts on Emily.
The spoken words just seem to flow naturally but trying
to put them in writing I become self-conscious. Perhaps
it will help if I think of this as what I would have liked
to be able to communicate to Emily about how much she
meant to me--and still does.
Emily, thank you for the gift of your presence in my life.
It was, quite simply, your gift of presence that I will
remember most about you You were always purely and simply
present, always in the moment. You invited every person
who came to you to do the same.
During my many visits to you in your barn over the years
you lived at the Peace Abbey , I now realize that I was
receiving darshan. You reminded me of the true meaning
of the word darshan, which simply means "sight" in Sanskrit--sight
of a sacred being.
When I think of the many elaborate efforts I had made
over the years before meeting you to receive darshan at
the feet of human spiritual teachers, I can only smile.
I have waited in line for hours for a momentary hug from
Ammachi and driven to another state to hear Mother Theresa
address an audience of thousands. Certainly these great
beings had their own special gifts to share but how different
was your darshan in its utter simplicity! The door to
your barn was always open. Often there were other visitors
there to see you and often we were alone. There was no
protocol to being with you, no schedule of events. You
were open and accessible to all. There were no boundaries
of culture or religion. The apparent difference of species
didn't seem to matter either.
You were a living reminder that we are all One. You made
no distinctions and reminded us to do the same. You catalyzed
a new awareness in people by your very presence. One look
into your large, luminous brown eyes communicated so much
more than words ever could. Who can say how many people
felt a new awareness of compassion as they stood quietly
with you? I've heard you whimsically described as the
"poster girl" for vegetarianism but you lived beyond all
"-isms" and you changed people not by rhetoric or reproach
but simply by your being. You gave wordless testimony
to the urgent necessity for an all embracing compassion
that naturally affected so much more than what goes on
one's dinner plate (although that's a good place to start).
You embodied the title of Michaelle Small Wright's book
" Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered". Speaking
humbly and gratefully for myself, this is your legacy
to me personally, Emily. I must recommit to living as
if the divine presence in each and every being matters.
This will be a lifelong journey and not an easy one in
a world where not all beings live in the state of all-inclusive
harmlessness that you did.
Your memory will be an ongoing reminder that it is important
to try. I will continue to fail often, to be sure. The
memorial to be erected in bronze and marble in your memory
will be an outward and tangible sign of your continued
presence in the heart of every person whose life you touched.
And the countless lives you will continue to touch after
the passing of your physical form. I feel very blessed
to have known you in that physical form and will always
be grateful for the joy you brought to my life and the
lives of all the family members and friends I brought
to see you. "Let's go see Emily!" we would say, and a
happy sense of anticipation always filled us as we pulled
in through the gates of the Peace Abbey and made our way
over to the barn.
Our visit this Sunday followed the usual pattern until
another visitor told us of your passing. Emily, I wish
I had known you were sick. I would have come and given
you Reiki. I wish I had known your body was lying in the
barn draped in sacredness and surrounded by flowers so
that I could have come and been in your peace-full presence
one last time . I wish I had known about your memorial
service so I could have been present. I realize, however
that these regrets are all about me and not about you
. There can be no "final respects" to you, Emily, and
there can be no closure until the last slaughterhouse
has closed its doors, until all beings show compassion
to each other, locally and globally. This is a process
that will outlive me, too. Your courageous life journey
will be an ongoing reminder that I must never give up.
You never did.
Kathy Berghorn
Emily
Means
I
Love
You
Connie Pickett
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at the my side spreads
her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the
blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and
I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
with each other.
Then someone at my side says; "There! She's gone."
Gone where?
Gone from my sight - that is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side,
and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the
place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not
in her; and just at the moment when some one at my side
says, "There! She's gone," there are other eyes watching
her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,
"There she comes!"
On sympathy card from Kathy Berghorn
METROWEST
DAILY NEWS
In America: The zen of Emily
By Miryam Wiley
Saturday, April 5, 2003
Emily the cow died last weekend, but her spirit lives.
She was a source of inspiration to this mother of a child
with special needs. The same way the bigger challenges
come from the outside world rather than everyday life
at home, truly meaningful content arises from listening
to a repetitive sentence that seemed meaningless at first.
It took me a while to tune in to Emily, the cow who jumped
over a fence and escaped the slaughterhouse seven years
ago. After weeks of hiding in the woods of Hopkinton,
she was taken in (and paid for) by Lewis and Meg Randa
of the Peace Abbey in Sherborn.
For one year now -- ever since my daughter Katherine started
attending the Life Experience School of the Peace Abbey
-- news of people and animals alike became the norm in
our conversations.
Emily provided entertainment and love, a presence that
left everyone around in a cheerful mood. Recently, however,
the news had turned to sadness.
"Emily is sick," Katherine told us one day. And then we
learned Emily would possibly get chemotherapy, a choice
eventually dropped to avoid the difficult side effects.
Still, Emily did not leave our thoughts. At breakfast
and dinner, we often heard of visits to the Abbey and
interactions with the famous cow or the news of how difficult
things were for her.
Then, last Sunday, Emily died. And to my surprise, I was
left with deep sadness.
The first day it was just sad news. Then it sank in and
it got worse when Katherine let out a deep cry one night.
I feel like I've lost Emily the same way I felt I lost
Mr. Rogers a few weeks ago. Like him, Emily was a barometer
of all things good.
The special kids at my daughter's school understood, in
their own way, that Emily lived to prove a point. Emily
was symbolic of a struggling creature that had a lot of
dignity to pass on to others. Near her, many made a quiet
and caring choice.
"People came to meet Emily and were amazed to find that
she was extremely interested in them," said Meg Randa.
"She was very affectionate and displayed the same kind
of personality and intelligence as, perhaps, their dog.
One would never consider eating their dog so, perhaps,
the connection was made that eating an animal was no longer
acceptable to them."
If all people didn't become vegetarians because of Emily,
they knew they had in her a good reason to consider it.
I have been there and back long before Emily was around.
I succumbed to a carnivorous lifestyle while eating on
the road as a TV reporter in Brazil. But I know the bounty
of nature and I feel I must reconsider.
For this whole past year, whenever we met new people and
Katherine was asked the name of the school she attended,
she often said, beyond the name: "The place where the
famous cow lives. Don't you know about Emily the cow?"
I saw more than one person look pretty terrified of being
misinformed.
The conversations started to flow when others saw Katherine
had no trouble with this topic, and details about how
the cow escaped the slaughterhouse and what a special
cow this was!
As inattentive as I might have been, I now know better
than to dismiss the importance of Emily.
In conversations with pacifist Lewis Randa about the state
of the world in recent weeks, Emily seemed to be part
of the talk here and there. Even, one time: "The Metrowest
Daily News loves Emily!" he said.
Looking at the book of Emily clippings that goes back
to 1995, I can see this paper did, in fact, give Emily
a lot of press time, despite some critics who didn't spare
the readers their view of the ridiculous "moo-vement."
In my house, the spirit of Emily lives. And despite the
fact that I was not one who paid her a visit or got one
of her famous cowlicks, I have realized I must tune in.
"Emily was more than just a cow," said Lewis Randa. "She
was, for people who loved her, an important creature who
put them in touch with a greater understanding of animals
and how humans should treat them. Her eyes would melt
your heart and make you appreciate what animals have to
offer."
I think she was so inclusive that she made a difference
in humans' appreciation of each other as well.
"We must learn that animals are thinking, feeling creatures
with the same will to live that any other creature possesses,"
said Meg Randa. "She was an ambassador for all animals
and her life and story is a testimony to the fact that
all life is sacred."
To reach Miryam Wiley, e-mail inamericacolumn@yahoo.com
or write to 33 New York Ave., Framingham, MA 01702
Emily's Memorial Service
at the Peace Abbey
Emily was an extraordinary creature that
blessed the lives of thousands and helped countless people
on their journey to vegetarianism.
At the Memorial Service held April 1 at 7 P.M., the standing
room only crowd enjoyed the gentle sounds of the Celtic
harp and hammered dulcimer of Philip and Pam Boulding
from Seattle, WA, the flute of local resident Joe Lillyman
and Boston singer/songwriter Ben Tousley who wrote a children's
song about Emily.
After describing Emily's escape from the slaughterhouse
and 40 day sojourn to safety by Meg Randa, one by one,
people spoke of the unusual and sometimes mystical nature
of their relationship with Emily. Many commented on how
their lives were changed by being in relationship with
this all but ordinary bovine. Love and appreciation for
Emily brought people together in a spirit of gentleness
and support.
The testimonials to Emily went on for over an hour. A
vegetarian Indian meal, catered by Udupi Bhavan Restaurant
of Ashland was shared following the service.
Living Arts Section
of the BOSTON GLOBE - 4/2/2003
Paying respects to Emily the Cow
By Carol Beggy & Al Young, Globe Staff
STOPPING TO SAY GOODBYE A steady stream of visitors
stopped by the Sherborn Peace Abbey yesterday to pay their
respects to Emily the Cow, who died Sunday of uterine
cancer. After escaping from a Hopkinton slaughterhouse
eight years ago, the 10-year-old cow made headlines worldwide
and was regarded as a prominent symbol of vegetarianism.
Last night, Emily was remembered at a memorial service
in the Quaker room at the Peace Abbey.
''It's actually been quite beautiful - all the outpouring
of support we've received ... e-mails from all over the
world,'' said Lewis Randa, who, along with his wife, Meg,
runs the Peace Abbey, a complex for contemplation and
antiwar activism that houses the Greater Boston Vegetarian
Resource Center.
Emily will be buried at the Peace Abbey, not far from
a statue of Gandhi and from the barn where she lived for
her last eight years. The story of Emily's escape and
her life in a custom-made barn in the suburbs is being
chronicled in a feature film.
METROWEST DAILY
NEWS
Emily the Cow Dies
By Peter Reuell
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
As spokeswomen go, Emily was never really all that talkative.
But all it took was one look in her wide, brown eyes and
the occasional "moo," and most folks at least contemplated
putting down their cheeseburgers for good.
Dozens of friends and fans of the Holstein with heart
turned out at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn yesterday to
say goodbye to the cow who became a national cause celebre
and poster animal for vegetarianism.
"It's amazing we're all here because of a cow," Peace
Abbey's co-director, Meg Randa, marveled. "She was just
extraordinary.
"I feel like her job wasn't done...but I know her legacy
will continue (if) we all carry her in our hearts."
The boisterous bovine first captured the region's attention
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