Person Record

Metadata

Name

Butler, Grace Arno

Birthplace

St. Marys, Georgia

Spouse

Gordon Timothy Butler wed 1927,

Children

Charles Arno Butler born 1928
Suzan Butler born 1946

School

Georgia Womens College, Milledgeville, Georgia. Graduated about 1926.

Notes

In 1928 Grace became the 4th grade teacher at Fernandina Public School for the next two decades or more. She was instrumental in founding the Fernandina Womens Club and in building their center south of Atlantic Avenue. During the last few months of World War II (1945) she became the principal of Fernandina High School.
After retiring from teaching she became involved in the First National Bank and was urged to become the first woman mayor.
Her husband, Gordon Timothy Butler, was the mayor in 1946-48 and was elected to head the Florida Kiwanis Club.in 1945. He had previously been the president of the Fernandina Kiwanis Club and was the Lt. Governor for Florida Kiwanis.
Her son, Charlie attended Emory College in Atlanta for a year and transferred to Auburn where he enrolled in the Naval ROTC program. He became a naval aviator pilot and ultimately retired as a Captain commanding the Memphis Naval Air Station after 20 years.

Her daughter, Suzan, was born in 1946, became a professional art museum curator with work in Atlanta and Washington, D.C and returned to Fernandina in about 2000. She was in the process of developing a museum in the old First Baptist Church when she suddenly died from cancer in 2005.

Recollections provided by:

William H. Rutledge, Jr.
Lt. Colonel, USAF, Retired
Class of 1946, Fernandina High School
January 26, 2025