Deadly flash floods hit central Texas on July 4, killing at least 135 people, including at least 27 campers and staff at Camp Mystic. The Christian girls’ camp was established in 1926.
Jennie Lou Tucker, a live event artist in Littleton, was a camper at Camp Mystic from the ages of 10 to 15 years old. Then she was a counselor there before college.
“It’s a very peaceful place,” Tucker said. “It’s like an Eden. You drive through the gates, and there are these huge cypress trees and beautiful green grass. Every girl there is smiling and happy, and excited. It’s just a place of fellowship and sisterhood… a place that you can grow up and feel safe.”
She said news of deadly flooding was awful. “It just pierced my heart. We all broke down in tears. We were just weeping. There’s no human part of me that was able to comprehend the devastation,” Tucker said.
From her home studio, Tucker turned her grief into art, which will then turn to action. She wrote the names of the 27 campers and counselors lost in the flooding, then painted a beautiful scene from Camp Mystic. The piece will be auctioned during a flood relief benefit hosted by CBS News Texas.
