Mary Ellen W. Butler
Toolbox
Published: November 21, 2008
HANOVER, N.H. – Mary Ellen Williams Butler, 89, formerly of Northfield, died at the Kendall Retirement Community in Hanover, N.H., on Oct. 19, 2008.
She was born in Riverton, N.J., on Dec. 15, 1918, and raised in Lancaster, Pa. She graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., and Columbia University in New York.
She met Eber Allen Spencer Jr. and they were married in August of 1953. He died in 1982. She remarried in 1986 to John K. Butler who died in 1998.
She worked at Goddard College on the Current magazine staff and later formed her own nursery school in Northfield and worked for the state of Vermont in the Office on Aging.
She was an active Quaker and a member of the Society of Friends and the Plainfield Friends Meeting.
She is survived by a brother, James Williams, and three sons Eber Allen Spencer, III of Weston, Ian Wentworth Spencer of Waitsfield and Jonathan Williams Spencer of Northfield.
She is predeceased by a brother, Robert Williams.
A memorial service is planned at the Plainfield Friends Meeting House on Nov. 30, 2008, and a subsequent service at Plymouth Meeting in Pennsylvania, at a yet to be scheduled date.
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