The butterfly people of Joplin

In the chaotic first days after the tornado, when nothing seemed real, word of the butterfly people began to spread.

The stories were shared in hospital waiting rooms and in lines for donated food. They were told by neighbors on streets so devastated there was nothing to do but stand and stare. A Red Cross counselor heard the stories as she handed out water and work gloves to residents in a hard-hit part of town. She got goose bumps. She told her pastor, who asked her to tell the congregation. She remembers how the crowd gasped.

The stories about butterfly people coursed through Joplin, passing one by one and then by the many, tales describing what children reported seeing on that Sunday night in May as the tornado bore down. The children said the butterfly people protected them.

These stories, tales of guardian angels, could be dismissed as a child's fanciful imagination. But the stories have taken hold here. And as the months have slipped by, the adrenaline fading along with some of the terror, the stories have assumed a new, maybe even more important role. To understand why, you have to understand what this town of 50,000 went through — and what it still faces.

The tornado killed 161 people. It shredded entire neighborhoods. More than 900 homes were lost. Big box stores collapsed. The destruction was complete, the landscape rendered foreign.

The tornado unleashed stories about death and unlikely survival: A teenager sucked from an SUV, a toddler plucked from his mother's arms, houses that exploded in 200-mph winds as families huddled in bathtubs and closets. For months, just about any place people gathered, the stories spilled out, including stories about the butterfly people.

The stories eventually found their way to Marta Churchwell. She is the skeptical sort, tough, a raspy-voiced former newspaper reporter. The longtime Joplin resident is not religious by the standards of a town known as the buckle on the Bible Belt. She is not inclined to believe in angels. But she saw what the May 22 tornado did to her town. The experience, she said, 'seared me clear to the bone."

"Looking out over the landscape, how did anyone survive? I don't know. I can't give you an answer," Churchwell said. "But it's human nature to try to find an answer."

And that's where the stories of butterfly people take flight.

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The stories changed with passing time and telling. But two versions dominated.

In one, a mother and daughter fled their vehicle as the tornado neared. The girl is 3 years old. In some versions, she is 4. They have no time to reach a nearby house. The mother and daughter hit the ground. The mother covers her child. Sometimes they jumped into a culvert. Other times, into a front yard. The mother watches as the winds hurtle her car toward them. She braces for the impact. The tornado passes. They are not hurt. The mother is astonished. "Weren't they pretty?" the daughter asks. The mom is confused. "Didn't you see the butterfly people?" the daughter says. In some versions, the daughter describes seeing the butterfly people also ferrying men and women into the sky.

The other story involves a father or grandfather and two young boys. They also are trapped outside during the tornado. In most tellings, the winds are so strong the soles of the father's shoes are ripped off. But no one is hurt. Again, it is the young boys, usually described as 3 or 4 years old, who saw butterfly people hovering above them, offering protection.

Shelley Wilson heard the story of the mother and daughter. She works as a high school counselor. After the tornado, she volunteered for a Red Cross disaster mental health team. She drove through neighborhoods distributing supplies, assessing how people were holding up. She doesn't remember who told her the butterfly people stories. She heard them several times. It was never firsthand — the stories never seemed to come from someone who experienced them.

But that didn't lead Wilson to doubt.

"It's the only way we can really, honestly understand how more people were not killed," she said. "When you walk through what was left, it just kind of took your breath away."

Wilson told the story to her church. That's where Mary Parks heard it. Parks shared it with her women's golf group, including Ellen Desmond. Desmond told her brother, who lives in upstate Illinois. He recounted the tale on his community news blog.

Marsha Sherrod heard the story while volunteering at a tornado donation center. She shared it with her Sunday school class at Forest Park Baptist. One boy, a quiet 11 year old, raised his hand. The boy said he saw the butterfly people that night too, Sherrod recalled.

She believes angels were there.

"If you had seen what I saw," she said, "you would understand."

She told the story to a friend in the church choir. Darlene "DJ" Bates is an artist. The story inspired her. She painted a watercolor showing an angel above a cowering mother and daughter in the tornado. She titled it "Butterfly People."