BEND, Ore. — A desert tortoise with an unverifiable claim to being Bend’s oldest resident died last week.
Sam, owned by defense attorney Angela Lee, was estimated to be somewhere between 110 and 125 years old during a visit to the veterinarian in 2007.
Lee, 46, said she’d always assumed her tortoise would outlive her, and said it could take awhile for her to adjust to life after Sam.
“Yesterday was the first day of my life without my pet,” she told The Bulletin on Friday. “I’ve sort of come to terms with, ‘Sam’s gone, nothing lives forever,’ but in my mind, Sam will always be with me.”
Sam — known as Samantha until Lee saw a documentary on tortoises in 2002 and determined “she” was in fact a “he” — came in to Lee’s parents’ lives in 1966, two years before Lee was born. Lee’s father, Walter, was stationed in 29 Palms, Calif., with the Marine Corps, and as a joke some neighbors picked up a tortoise they found crossing the road and delivered it to Billie Lee, Angela Lee’s mother.
As the story was relayed to Lee, the neighbors who brought Sam to the Lee house were just looking to get a rise out of her mother. To everyone’s surprise, Billie Lee decided to keep the tortoise. Multiple photos of Billie Lee while pregnant with Lee feature Sam as well, she said, feasting on lettuce, tomatoes, watermelon and dandelions.
Lee’s family’s schedule eventually came to revolve around Sam’s habits, Lee said.
From October through February, he would hibernate in the backyard, she said, then announce he was ready for his first post-hibernation meal by knocking his shell against the sliding glass door.
Kids from Lee’s neighborhood were fond of Sam and learned his patterns as well, she said, often dropping by to visit and feed him dandelions.
Lee said she was “crying like a baby” over Sam’s death on Thursday. Her 81-year-old father sat down next to her on her bed, rubbed her back, and tried to comfort her.
