Family and fans of Angel the cow on what she meant to fire-scarred Sonoma County

It’s hard to know what Angel, the pet cow, made of all the attention and adoration she received after she survived the hellish Tubbs Fire to become a great-horned, approximately 1,600-pound Sonoma County symbol of survival and hope.

But clearly, she enjoyed the apples.

“She had a way of always smiling at you with her eyes, especially when you fed her something sweet,” one of her two keepers, Houston Evans, said Wednesday.

Angel’s most eagerly eaten treats — apples and pumpkin — flowed from her family and from admirers ever more abundantly since 2017, when she emerged unscathed from the inferno that killed her primary master, Valerie Lynn Evans, Houston’s mother.

The Tubbs Fire also devoured the family’s small, long-standing ranch just across the western or southbound fence from Highway 101 in north Santa Rosa.

Since the firestorm, the Texas longhorn was celebrated as a post-disaster emblem, attracting treats, donations, media coverage and honks from passing motorists there at the point where the blaze blasted from the hills of Fountaingrove to the flats of Coffey Park.

Angel withstood the disaster, but died Monday. The heartsick Evans family figure she was 25 years old, no spring calf.

Recently, said Houston Evans’ wife, Victoria, “She was having a harder time walking.” With age, the longhorn had developed hip problems.

Houston Evans offered, “She lived a long life, and a happy life at that.”

As Santa Rosa and Sonoma County struggled to come to terms with the historic Tubbs Fire, which killed 22 people and consumed more than 4,600 structures, this pet cow rose up as a most unlikely embodiment of the community’s resolve to stand up, draw together and move forward.

“She helped to bring the community together at what was probably one of its darkest moments,” said Paul Derkos of Sebastopol, since 2017 a booster of Angel and a friend of the Evans family.

Derkos said it seems him that in the wake of the catastrophe, and during the healing and the rebuild, Angel became a Sonoma County icon — “one level less than Snoopy.”

Derkos was drawn to the story of the Evanses and their cow shortly after the fire took the life of 75-year-old Valerie Evans and destroyed her family’s two homes.

With no place to live, Houston Evans moved temporarily to Penngrove with his wife and his father, Glyn. They took along Angel.

Derkos and his wife, Kristina, created a Facebook page, “Bring Home Angel.” They asked for help for the Evans family, which also benefited from a GoFundMe account created by Dave Yarger Jr.

People donated to help feed and care for Angel, and to provide emergency relief to the survivors of Valerie Evans. Santa Rosa’s landmark ranch and feed store, Western Farm Center, sold Angel T-shirts and donated hay and other supplies.

“It was a small thing, but the symbolism is what mattered more,” said Western Farm owner and manager Trevor Frampton. He said Angel became a focal point around which the people of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County rallied to help each other to recover and rebuild.

The death of Valerie Evans, who’d run into her burning home for her dog, Scooter, and loss of the entire ranch was utterly devastating to her family. Son Houston later endured the death of his father, Glyn, as he and Victoria struggled against the myriad obstacles that stood between them and the construction of a new log home that was completed at last in the spring of 2021.

Throughout their quest to honor the memory of Valerie Evans by rebuilding the ranch, Houston and Victoria were buoyed by the caring that local people and businesses showered on them and their massive but mellow pet cow.

“There’s been nothing but overwhelming support and love for Angel,” Houston said. “It’s been amazing. It was the best in the nature of people, and the best of the people of Sonoma County.”

Who would have thought, he said, that his family’s cow would become an icon?

Among the many drivers who savored a glimpse of Angel as they rolled by on southbound 101 was Joel Sinai, who pilots buses for Sonoma County Airport Express, the North Bay shuttle service.

Sinai said he always looked right to see if the black-and-white longhorn was lounging in her roofed paddock or standing in her spacious pen. He said he never beeped his bus’s horn — he didn’t want to startle her.

Now that she’s gone, Sinai said, “Every time I go by I want to give her a little honk, just to let her family know I miss her.”

Chris Smith is a retired Press Democrat reporter and columnist. You can reach him at (707) 477-6489.