Brookview Tony Charity facts for kids

Brookview Tony Charity was a very famous show cow. Many people thought she was the best cow ever. She lived from August 6, 1978, to August 10, 1988. Even today, she is known as the greatest show cow from North America.

A Champion Cow's Life

Brookview Tony Charity was born in Fremont, Ohio, in 1978. Her first owners were John D. and Karl E. Havens. In 1981, she was bought by Hanover Hill Holsteins. This farm was in Port Perry, Ontario, Canada. After moving to Canada, she started her amazing career as a show cow.

Winning Top Awards

From 1982 to 1987, Charity won many big awards. She won top titles at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair and World Dairy Expo. She won these four times, which was a record! She also earned six special awards for producing a lot of milk. She was named "All-American" and "All-Canadian" nine times. She was never beaten in her competition class. Experts said she had the best body shape of any cow they had ever seen.

A Very Valuable Cow

In 1985, a part of Charity was sold for a huge amount of money. Stephen Boleslav Roman's Romandale Farms bought half of her for $1.4 million. This was a record price for a cow! Hanover Hill Holsteins still owned the other half.

Amazing Milk Production

Charity was also excellent at producing milk. She was one of the best milk producers in the 1980s. When she was five years old, she produced over 39,000 pounds of milk in one year. That's a lot of milk! Andrew Hunt, who started a big dairy magazine, called her "incredible perfection!" His magazine ranks Charity as the top North American show cow ever.

Her Family and Legacy

Even though Charity was amazing, her family history was not special. She had many calves, but none of them became as famous as she was in cow shows. Brookview Tony Charity died in 1988 due to illness.

Her Memorial Statue

In 2017, a special statue of Brookview Tony Charity was put up. It is in Cathedraltown, Ontario, a neighborhood built where Romandale farm used to be. The statue is made of stainless steel and is called Charity, Perpetuation of Perfection. It was made by an artist named Ron Baird.

A Statue on Stilts

The statue is quite unusual because it is on tall posts. These posts lift Charity high above a small park. Some people living nearby did not like the statue. They thought it was too high. Even Ken Trevena, who took care of Charity, agreed that "the bottom side of the cow is not its best."

Debates About the Statue

The city council in Markham decided to move the statue. However, the person who donated the statue disagreed. She said the city did not own it completely. News reports showed that Charity had never actually lived in Markham. She stayed in Port Perry until she died and was buried there.

The Statue's Future

Despite plans to move it, the statue stayed in its original spot for a while. There were some legal discussions about who owned the statue and where it should be. In the end, a judge decided that residents should not have to keep a gift they did not want. This meant the statue could be moved.