Butler School Restoration Project 1st Butler School Reunion April 28, 1984
Prepared by Vera Butler Ruffini
As a great-granddaughter of Edmund Butler, I am pleased to be able to represent his family at a reunion of Butler School pupils. I love to talk about Butler Family Genealogy, but I won't bore you with a lot of details.
Edmund Butler and his wife Permelia Ann came to Illinois as newlyweds from North Carolina about 1833 when he was 26 years old, obtained land grants for two adjoining 40 acre plots in Section 16 and 21 in 1836. That was the year his father wrote him a letter verifying that he was born May 8, 1807 -- we still have that 150 year old tattered letter with the father's signature. The school house was located in the north east corner of the land Edmund owned in Section 16. (financing for rural schools)
The Butlers had 7 children -- all born in Illinois. My grandfather Henry H. first married Lucy Ann Weeks, daughter of Lancaster, but she died young -- they only had two girls. One of them married Willie Bond and lived a few miles from old D Camp mine. Henry's second marriage was with Mary Jane Piper, my grandmother, and among her children was my father Oliver Butler. Henry's sister Eliza also married a Weeks, who was William Robert, but I know nothing about that family. If some of you belong to any Weeks family I would be very interested in talking to you.
Edmund died in 1853 -- rather young, but Permelia lived until 1892 -- forty years longer than her husband. I assume that it was after she died that Louis Klein acquired the farm, passed it on to his son Edgar, who sold it to Wiesemans, present owners.
There are no decendants in this area bearing the Butler name, but several families of the line live in Staunton and have passed it on to their children -- I can think of only four such family groups. However, 300-400 of the descendants are broadly scattered throughout southern Illinois and the west.
Judy Klein Sherfy has been very helpful in supplying more recent information about this area so I want to thank her, and to thank Frances for breaking a rule of "pupils and teachers mostly" and allowing me to join you today. In case you wonder, I was born and raised in Staunton and still live there just south of the school, very close to the Kleins. By the way, I am a retired school teacher.
