For almost 100 years, Camp Mystic has been welcoming girls to the banks of the Guadalupe River. A wall of water washed away everything but the memories.
DALLAS — As they evacuated Camp Mystic in a bus, the soft voices of survivors of Central Texas’ July 4 weekend flooding can be heard singing songs from their Christian girls’ camp. A camp nurse recorded it, and it has now been shared multiple times on social media.
Listening to their voices can lift hearts, but also break them.
Camp Mystic sits along the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country and has been welcoming girls since 1926. But it’s more than just a camp, it’s a tradition.
Generations of families have sent daughters there, including former governors and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Former First Lady Laura Bush was once a counselor.
Monday night, hundreds of Camp Mystic alumni and their families gathered at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.
The gathering was not open to the public, but cameras were briefly invited in to witness the size of the crowd and the scope of the grief.
“This was their home away from home,” said Monet Ball, a friend to many Mystic alums.
She did not attend the camp, but those who did asked her to act as a spokesperson.
“It’s their sisterhood,” she said.
Some people flew into Dallas just for 24 hours so they could be part of the gathering, Ball said.
Alumni also held a service in Houston, where they held hands and sang the same songs they learned so many years ago.
The camp released its first statement on Monday, confirming 27 campers and counselors had died.
That includes Janie Hunt, Lila Bonner, Eloise Peck, and twin sisters Rebecca and Hannah Lawrence – all from Dallas. Those are just a few of the deaths from North Texas.
Ten campers and one counselor are still missing. Camp director Dick Eastland died, too, trying to get campers to safety.
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