Jane McAbee recalled this week how she would tag along as a small child, walking to the bank on weekends with her father to help him open the mail and take care of other small office chores a girl her age could handle.
McAbee remembers her father as being "affectionate" and said it was frequently easy to see just how important his work at the bank and in the community was to him.
By the time First National Bank was closed in October 1983, Butler had been given the position as chairman emeritus of the bank's board. He maintained an office but no longer had a direct hand in the bank's day to day operations.
The day the bank failed was rough on a lot of Midlanders and West Texans, but, as would be expected, particularly so on Mr. Butler. Mrs. McAbee's admiration and continued love and respect for him were evident in her voice as she told the story of that day.
"Father's sectretary told me that on October 13, 1983, the day the bank closed, father had taken his Daybook and written, 'Goodbye, old friend.' "
McAbee said that night, she and her mother found him sitting in a recliner in front of the television watching the World Series.
"How are you?" they asked him.
"I'm fine," McAbee recalled him saying. "We saved the depositors their money."
McAbee shared that her father's deep affection and close relationship he had developed with her husband, Kim McAbee, helped pull him through the tough times of the mid 1980s. So close were they, in fact, that Mrs. McAbee said her father never got over the death of her husband.
"Kim died in 1995. Father died in 1997," she said.
Mr. Butler's widow, Alva, would live to be 107.