99-year-old Pella woman releases monarch butterflies with her family

By Alyssa Gomez

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    PELLA, Iowa (KCCI) — Ninety-nine-year-old Wilma Hoekstra has loved monarch butterflies since she was a young girl.

“I was kind of a bug kid. We would catch little creatures and keep them in matchboxes,” Hoekstra said.

When Hoekstra moved to Iowa, she began raising butterflies. As a teacher, she used them as a tool.

“I just felt the monarch butterfly had such a beautiful story, such a cycle of life that we all could follow even in our own lives,” Hoekstra said.

And Hoekstra said they teach a lesson in kindness, too.

“Why would you destroy something so beautiful, just because it’s ugly at a point in its life,” Hoekstra said.

Hoekstra even wrote a book to teach those lessons to her grandchildren, called “Mona and Me.”

Surrounded by family, Hoekstra released her latest group of monarchs in Pella. Hoekstra said the butterflies they released are expected to go to Mexico for winter and then come back to Texas in May and June and start the cycle over again.

“My prayer is that I can be here a year from now, but otherwise this is my grand… It’ll be a grand farewell. But, I know where they’re going and I know where I’m going. So, you know, it’s maybe, ‘See you later,'” Hoekstra said.

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