Margaret Butler

Margaret Butler came to MIU in the 1970s as Margaret Yoder with a PhD in French literature and became chair of the literature department. She met and married staff member Ed Butler, a former Marine. It was in the literature department, under Margaret’s leadership, that I worked during my first years at the university: Project WRITE, the writing across the curriculum program I helped create and ran for eight years, was housed in that department.

When Ed decided to get a PhD in environmental science at the University of Iowa, they relocated there. There Margaret decided to train as an Episcopal priest. When she completed her training, she took over a parish in Ottumwa, Iowa.

Margaret

May I suggest that the best use of time

Is to rest from our quest and enjoy a short rhyme

The meter’s amphibrachic — or is it dactylic? —

In any event, the subject’s idyllic

The start of this verse that I hereby submit

Is Margaret Y. Butler — la Grande Dame de Lit

Margaret’s not only the head but the heart

Embracing the people of whom she’s a part

You enter her office, and then, as you leave

You feel the fullness of her joie de vivre

She guides you towards more, and she always uplifts —

Along with her consciousness, the best of her gifts

Of all the department heads, few are as dutiful

Fewer as radiant, no one as beautiful

Every few weeks she’s especially pretty:

Whenever she’s leaving for Iowa City!

Edward’s now seeking his own PhD —

When he returns, what a team they will be

Margaret and Edward will make an impression —

They’ll teach of the earth and its written expression

He’ll follow currents of water and air

She’ll follow currents of lit — what a pair!

Edward and Margaret — they both get their wishes

He cooks the dinners — she does the dishes

It doesn’t much matter the path that she’s takin’

She’s asking the question suggested by Lakein:*

“What’s the best use of my time?” she will ask —

“What is my top A-Priority task?”

Her time’s in demand, but she’ll always progress

She somehow can always make more out of less

Her memory’s perfect, except for those times

Forgetting her key, through the window she climbs

A sewer of threads and a sower of seeds

Governing time and fulfilling its needs

Is it because we’re well read or well versed

That Lit presentations are asked to be first?

Most likely it’s just that they go for the best:

The highest is always the first one addressed

Mallarmé, Valery, Shakespeare, and Swift —

She’s able to give even masters a lift

From Gawain to Gulliver, Walden to Frye

She’s just “as you like it,” bold and yet shy

From office to video, classroom to mats

Her bike and her Maha’s and also her hats

She’s always becoming, with such bonhomie

So superradiant, such sweet esprit

We’re honored to know her, so brilliant and pure

I’ll end these remarks with a simple “Bonjour”

— November 14, 1979

* Refers to Alan Lakein, expert in personal time management and author of How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, a popular book at the time.