Short days and a chilly breeze off the Pacific Ocean. Time for a winter story—at least, a Northern California winter story. Instead of snow, we have butterflies.
Monarch butterflies, to be exact. Mary D. Barber’s short essay Winter Butterflies in Bolinas describes the annual September arrival of thousands of Monarchs to the quiet Bolinas peninsula, on the Marin County coast an hour’s drive north of San Francisco.
This is the winter home of the Monarch butterfly which comes not only from the Sierra Nevada mountains but also from the western range of the Rockies. … Thousands of these frail butterflies start on their long journey toward the Pacific, in search of a mild climate, free from frost and snow, in which they can live all winter.
The migration has always fascinated scientists and public alike: Why do the butterflies migrate at all? What is special about the particular gathering points? What instinct guides them to the same trees every year?
When these butterflies arrive, the air seems full of them, hovering, flitting, whirling like brown autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind. Having reached their winter home they swarm on a cypress tree which affords the best shelter during wind and storm. Each year they come, not only to the same grove, but to the very same tree, and always to the southerly and easterly side of it.
Barber ends her tale with the story of a lone butterfly:
When on a yacht bound for the Farallone Islands members of the party saw one of these butterflies soaring over the ocean about ten miles from shore. It did not rest on the boat, but with wings spread before the east wind it sped away, following the path of the setting sun like a soul in quest of the ideal. That evening a storm came on suddenly. What was the fate of that lone butterfly?
He died, unlike his mates I ween
Perhaps not sooner or worse crossed;
And he had felt, thought, known and seen
A larger life and hope, though lost
Far out at sea
Winter Butterflies in Bolinas was printed at the Tomoye Press in January 1918 by Ricardo J. Orozco. It is a delicate booklet, just 6.5 x 4″ in size, with delightful decorations by Rudolph Schaeffer, who also designed the covers for The Last Mile-Stone and New Footprints in Old Places.
One unanswered question about the production of Winter Butterflies concerns the coloration. I own two copies, both of which have had color applied to the cover and page 3, and one also to the title page. The colors appear to have been applied by hand, as the two books are similar but not exactly the same. However, a third copy seen online has no such coloration. Was the book issued in both colored and uncolored versions?
Author Mary Dunkin Barber was born on 20 March 1870 in San Anselmo, the daughter of attorney William Barber and Elizabeth B. Jackson. The Barbers were a pioneer family who at one time owned all the land between San Anselmo and Ross. Other than one year of travel in Europe, she seems to have spent her entire life in Marin County. According to her obituary in the West Marin Star, she suffered from several illnesses in her final years, and after being taken from her home to Stanford Hospital on 13 January 1929, she hanged herself from an improvised rope a week later.
Updated 2025-01-11