Charles Eugene Butler was born Dec. 5, 1933 to Charles Alvin Reuel Butler and Bessie Mae McQueary at the Calhoun Place on Clahoun Lane north of Gordon. Shortly thereafter, they moved to the old Butler Place on Butler Lane. When he was five years old they moved to the farm three miles east of Gordon. He and his family attended the Mt. Zion Baptist Church where his dad led the singing. His mother usually fed the preacher on Sunday. Their house didn’t have indoor plumbing - all water brought in from the well on the back porch or from the cistern behind the house and if you wanted hot water, you heated it on the stove.
Mr. Butler worked for the W.P.A. during the depression, doing things like driving a team of mules to build a road north of Gordon. He farmed, raised chickens, cattle, and always had a garden. He did custom hay bailing for several years before going to work for Lone Star Gas Company in 1947. Mrs. Butler always had pretty house plants and flowers in the yard. She had a wringer type washing machine in the wash house out back, but even after the kids were grown, she would often use the old big black wash pot to boil clothes in. There were 3 tanks on their land and Charles loved to fish in them.
When Charles was 12 years old he became very sick - for about a week Dr. Robinson in Gordon treated him for upset stomach. When his health didn’t improve, his parents took him to a doctor in Palo Pinto who diagnosed him with appendicitis and sent him to Harris Hospital in Ft. Worth - the doctor there discovered he had a ruptured appendix and gangrene had set in. The doctor did surgery and Charles was in the hospital for 14 days.
After graduation in 1952, Charles went to work for Western Electric Company installing dial telephone equipment for Southwestern Bell. This job required him to move around a lot. When he came to Stanton to install dial telephone equipment, he met his future wife. They married after a short courtship and moved to Lubbock, then to Ft. Worth. While he worked in Ft. Worth he and Betty lived with Alvin and Bessie Butler on their farm 3 miles east of Gordon. His twin sister, Imogene, her husband Max, and their young daughter, Linda Kay, were living with he Butlers while Mas worked in Ft, Worth for Western Electric. Then Emelie and Bobby moved in when Western Electric transferred Bobby from McAllen to Ft. Worth. When we look back on that time, we wonder how Alvin and Bessie put up with us. Charles, Max, and Bobby car-pooled to Ft. Worth to save money. Some nights they went coon hunting - then skinned the coons and sold their pelts for extra cash.
Western Electric transferred many of their employees to the northern states early in 1954, and Charles was sent to Gary, Indiana. They also lived in Fox Lake and Kankakee, Illinois as well as Chesterton, Indiana. In May of 1954, Betty returned to her parents home in Stanton while awaiting the birth of their son, Leslie Eugene, who was born July 28, 1954. In September of 1954, Will Ed and Myrtle took Betty and Les back to Indiana. In 1955 Charles was drafted and brought his wife and year old son back to Texas and Fort Carson, Colorado before being stationed at the Presidio, San Francisco, CA. He was assigned to the barracks on Pt. Richmond, across the bay from San Francisco. His wife and son joined him there. A radar site was located on the Point and Charles and his unit manned the radar to intercept any enemy planes. His unit was the 757 AAA Gun Battalion at Presidio, San Francisco.
Military pay didn’t go very far and Charles and Betty often ate mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches to make groceries last longer - there was a grocery store on the corner from their apartment and the Chinese gentleman who ran the store would give them credit for groceries so they could have milk for Les. (That Chinese gentleman was paid the day Charles got hi pay.) Charles always paid his bills on time or ahead of time. He didn’t like owing anyone.
When he was discharged from the army, Charles returned to Ft. Worth, Texas and his job at Western Electric. After a few months Charles and many Western employees were laid off. Charles got a job in a box factory in Mineral Wells to support his family which had increased with the birth of a second son, Larry Wayne, born November 8, 1957. Charles got a job with General Telephone Company installing dial telephone equipment which required him to move his family often in the 40X8 trailer house he had bought before he was laid off. After 3 moves in about that many weeks, Charles moved his family to Stanton where he went to work for Wes-Tex Telephone Co-Op.
Charles started as a lineman in 1958. He spent 19 years as a lineman, 2 years as Assistant Manager and 20 years as Manager - he devoted himself to his job at Wes-Tex Telephone 24/7 - earned a reputation among the other co-op managers and co-op association personnel as a very competent and dependable manager and loyal friend - through his job he met many people and made many friends. He was a very out going person, never met a stranger, and loved to visit and talk about “old times”.
During the time Charles worked as a telephone lineman he helped a Lone Wolf Electric Co-Op employee rescue a coworker. The man had come in contact with 7,200 volt electrical wire and was dangling from a telephone pole cross-arm where he had fallen after contact. Charles received a letter of appreciation from the manager of Lone Wolf Electric Co-Op.
Charles always liked to stay busy. He was a member of the I.O.O.F Lodge in Stanton until it disbanded, served on the school board, he liked to bowl and even won a bowling trophy, and at one time built and flew some model airplanes. He collected old coins and for a year he had several bee hives in the back yard and harvested the honey and let the grandkids sell it. He was a fan of football and basketball and supported the local teams at home and away. When his boys were young, he coached Little League baseball teams. He encouraged his sons to participate in 4-H and helped them with their projects, he really enjoyed the capon show. He loved to fish and for many years, Charles went fishing twice a year at El Indio on the Rio Grande with his fishing buddies. Another of Charles’s interests through the years was collecting barbed wire and he amassed quite a collection by scouring the pastures for old and unusual barbed wire and trading barbed wire with other collectors at barb wire shows and through the mail. He and a friend found some double-barbed ribbon wire, they called it “double scratcher”, and no one else had found any like it. There was a lot of interest among collectors for that wire. Barbed wire collectors had a magazine which he subscribed to for a while. He mounted some of his collection on boards and hung them in the garage and some are hanging in his house. There is one board with is “double scratcher” wire on it.
Charles always enjoyed a good game of domino’s and played often wherever domino players might gather. He looked forward to meeting at Guy’s, Rita’s, or the Town and Country or where ever the other coffee drinkers might gather to visit and drink coffee or a cold drink. After he retired, in between the coffee drinking and domino playing, he worked in his yard. He walked many miles on his property with a hoe in his hand, getting rid of grass burrs, goat heads, and mesquite and bear grass, and he didn’t rest until he put the gofers away. Traveling in the RV was right down Charles’s alley, what better way to meet new people, hear new stories, and learn new things. Grandkids, now that was another joy in his life, grandkids and great-grandkids.
He was predeceased by his parents,Alvin and Bessie Butler, infant twin sisters Essie Mae and Bessie Fay, one granddaughter Laycee, one great granddaughter Emelie, brother-in-law Max Wheeler, and brother-in-law Bobby Edwards.
He is survived by his wife Betty; two sons, Les Butler and wife Tracey, of Ft. Worth, and Larry Butler and wife Lori, of Stanton; two sisters, his twin Imogene Wheeler of Gordon, and Emelie Edwards of Santo; grandchildren, David Butler and wife Mandy, of Stanton, Shantel Pack, Shauna Compton and husband Danny, Sheila Shepard and husband Mike, Shey Rivas and husband Jason, and Brandi Cisneros; 19 greatgrandchildren and one niece and four nephews and numerous cousins.