Edna Irene Butler

Edna Irene Butler passed away in Greeley, Colorado on Sunday May 25th, 2025, at the age of 99.

Irene was born in Iola, Kansas on March 20th, 1926, during a blizzard. Her father could not pick up her mother and Irene from the hospital for three full weeks due to the amount of snow. She frequently had a blizzard on her birthday her entire life. She grew up on a farm on the outskirts of the small town of La Crosse, Kansas in a house her grandparents built on land they pioneered as a “tree claim”.

She attended high school in La Crosse with a graduating class of 35. She was an editor for the school paper, acted in plays, played the bells in marching band, and played the string bass in the orchestra. She sang in choir and played the piano very well.

She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder, then the University of Missouri, where she graduated with a degree in Arts and Sciences. She had an IQ of 150, and was a life-long avid reader, loved to learn languages, and was addicted to doing crossword puzzles like her mother before her. She also loved to travel, especially to Ghost Ranch and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She also loved to wear jewelry acquired in Santa Fe.

Irene married James Lee Butler on July first, 1951. She was a Brownie leader married to a Boy Scout leader who loved to camp. She couldn’t understand how people loved to camp when they had just gotten indoor plumbing when she left the farm. They were happily married 69 years, before his death at the age of 94.

Irene worked as a secretary and professional research assistant for CIRES- the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences. She worked for the well-known glaciologist Uwe Ruddock. He had spent years escaping the Nazis, learning German in Germany and English in Australia. Therefore, he needed some help with his spelling and his sentence construction on some of his professional papers, which Irene helped him with.

In her later years, Irene was a member of the Audobon Society, and helped Celeste Fried start the GRASP group at the Greeley Active Adult Center. She and her husband were active members of GRASP, which they enjoyed very much. They also enjoyed meeting with friends from Boulder regularly.

Irene’s parents were from two different ethnic groups in Kansas that didn’t like each other much at the time; the Scotch Irish and the Volga Germans. Her parents had to elope to get married. Irene learned from her childhood that people are more alike than different and had friends all her life from many different racial, cultural, and religious groups.

Irene is preceded in death by her parents, George Jacobs and Florence (McDaniel) Jacobs; husband, James Lee Butler; son, Mark Butler and daughter-in-law, Betty (Jones) Butler.

She is survived by her daughter, Laura Butler; son, Craig Butler and his wife, Karen Butler; grandchildren, Dylan Butler, Francis (Butler) Fan and husband, Howard Fan, and Paul Butler.

She is also survived by great grandchildren, Percy Fan and Elaina Fan.

A family service will be held in La Crosse per Irene’s wishes.

If you would like to honor Irene, please say a little prayer for peace and tolerance in the world. She would like that.