Just days into her first-ever summer away from home, Janie clutched a cherished gift close to her heart: a beaded necklace, spelling her name in bright, childlike letters — a simple treasure from her grandmother. To Janie, it was more than jewelry. It was comfort, courage, and a reminder she wasn’t alone.
When the unthinkable happened — when torrential rains turned the Guadalupe River into a deadly current, sweeping away roads, cabins, and lives — it was that same necklace that helped rescue teams identify her. They found her body nestled in debris, the necklace still around her neck, just where she had held it.
“She wore it every day,” her grandmother, Margaret Hunt, recalled. “It made her feel brave. When they found her… it was still there. That’s how we knew it was our Janie.” A gift from a school play in May had become a symbol of love — and Janie’s final message, even in silence.
She had come to Camp Mystic to be with her cousins, to chase summer dreams under the open Texas sky. No one expected the storm that would turn joy into tragedy. Among the missing: Janie Hunt. Among the heroes lost: camp owner Dick Eastland, found near Janie, having died trying to save the children.
In the days before the flood, Janie had been a quiet source of comfort for others — wiping tears, cheering up homesick campers, and offering the kind of smile that makes you believe everything will be okay. “She was always the helper,” Margaret said. “She told the other kids not to cry.”
Janie loved to draw, to sing, and to make people laugh. A colorful heart she painted was recently selected for a school art show. Her favorite hymn, Go Tell It on the Mountain, will be sung at her funeral by her cousins this Tuesday, July 15.
Her parents, Davin and Anne Lindsey Hunt, are clinging to her camp letters — short, sweet notes filled with joy. “I love camp. I love my friends. I’m having a wonderful time,” she wrote. Now, those words echo differently — like sunlight breaking through the clouds.
“She was the heartbeat of our family,” her obituary reads. “Adventurous, kind, and full of joy.” Margaret added, “Please pray not just for today, but for the weeks and years ahead. Her parents will need every ounce of strength.”
There were others lost — two sisters who died in each other’s arms, a grandmother who loved the river’s edge, a counselor who mentored young girls — faces of a tragedy that stunned Texas.
Janie may have been small, but to those who loved her, she was larger than life. And even in the rising waters, a strand of beads told a story that would not be washed away.
