Photo by Caitlin Healey ’09
This is the first known photograph of Jorge the goose to have been printed in Mount Holyoke News.
By Madeleine Diesl ’28
Science & Environment Editor
On Dec. 9, 2024, tragedy struck Mount Holyoke College: Jorge, the campus goose, flew into a Blanchard Hall window and died. Jorge was a feral Pilgrim goose who frequented Lower Lake, but his legacy was much more than that: He was the unofficial mascot of LITS and a large part of the student culture at Mount Holyoke for several decades. Now, a year after this dreadful event, we can remember Jorge by his many appearances in the College’s digital archives, particularly in past Mount Holyoke News articles.
In the Nov. 11, 2004 issue of MHN, Rachael Robins ’07 claimed that they liked to “feed the goose granola from [their] own mouth,” perhaps referring to Jorge. A year later, in the Sept. 29, 2005 issue, Katie Adler ’08 wrote an article detailing a day in the life of the “Mangled Goose,” which is described as having a “strong and thick orange beak” and “[lurking] along the shoreline near Prospect [Hall], stalking its next victim.” Though he remains unnamed, it can only be assumed that Adler is describing Jorge.
One of the first references to Jorge by his name, “Jorge,” appears to be in the 2007 April Fool's issue, in a joke article by “Anonymous Samanta ’10” about him relocating from Lower Lake to Wilder Hall. However, the writer also refers to him as “Hubert,” a name that never shows up elsewhere in the digital archives. In fact, over the course of the past 20 years, Jorge has been called “Hubert,” the “Mangled Goose,” the “Prospect Goose,” the “Lower Lake Goose,” and even the “Big White Ugly” in a photo caption in the Sept. 18, 2008 issue. This photo, which depicts Jorge walking next to an outdoor dining area, is actually the earliest known photograph of Jorge in an MHN article.
Current students have a lot to say about Jorge, as well. When asked about his death, Yan Hernandez ’28 said, “Jorge has left an intersex grey pilgrim goose shaped hole in my heart. I miss seeing him lord over Lower Lake and eating bugs in the grass. He was truly the best of us. #Latinopride.”
Amy Gingras ’28 referenced the fictional character Eggman from one of SnapCube’s Sonic the Hedgehog fan dubs on YouTube: “I miss my goose. I miss him a lot. I’ll be back.”
Missing Jorge’s presence has been a common theme amongst students, as Nicole Lasko ’28 commented: “He was well loved and he is universally missed … there's never going to be another like him.”
If you’re interested in learning more about Jorge and Mount Holyoke News’s history in general, pay a visit to the Five College digital archives website or Mount Holyoke’s Archives and Special Collections and search for the Mount Holyoke College student newspaper collection – the yearly April 1st articles are particularly entertaining!
Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.