Al proudly marked which was his father in this picture!
Al, the only living brother of the four who reached adulthood, the three remaining Butler sisters-in-law, a bunch of Butler cousins, and a few stray in-laws finally had a post-Covid gathering this past June. The trip was arranged by our daughter as a Father’s Day gift. The oldest sister-in-law brought out family pictures, letters, and memorabilia that began a wonderful time of sharing memories. I asked about one missing item.
I thought of it again when I saw that today is the anniversary of the certification of the nineteenth amendment, giving women the right to vote. The governor of Tennessee sent their ratification certificate by registered mail to the U. S. Secretary of State. Once it was certified as correct, Secretary Colby signed the Proclamation of Women’s Suffrage Amendment into the U. S. Constitution in the presence of his secretary on August 26, 1920.
My mother-in-law had saved an essay written by my father-in-law as a young high school student sometime before his graduation in 1913. He made an earnest plea for women to be given the right to vote. I remembered reading it in the early years of our marriage and noting his ardor for the cause and his competence in making his case. When I asked about the essay, nobody else in the family remembered having seen it. Mr. Butler’s granddaughters were especially intrigued, and all of us would like to know where that tidbit of family history went. Those who remembered him had no trouble believing he would have stood up for women’s rights.
My father-in-law died not long after I met him and before I began to keep an eye on his son. We had lived with my mother-in-law for the first four years we were married, and I saw many of her treasures over the course of those years. She was particularly proud of this essay, though it was written before she met him. She always took her right to vote very seriously. While I would cherish those pages of his handwriting, I value even more the stand he took and the heritage that he passed along to his sons of valuing all people.