Mother returned to Virginia after those two years and

Mother returned to Virginia after those two years and went on to complete high school at Manassas Regional Industrial High School, the only high school in perhaps a 7 to 8 countywide area for Blacks in those days. She then completed college at Virginia State University, Petersburg, Va. by working part-time, and gaining room and board'^ith the family of the school’s dean.

Currently, Mother still lives in Sperryville, in the 4 house that she and Daddy built and moved into in 1970. She leads a very active and full life (even after Daddy passed away two days after Thanksgiving in 1990).

Along the way, she became the first Black to serve on the Rappahannock County School Board, has served in numerous capacities and taught 37 years in public schools in Pennsylvania and Virginia; the majority of those years in Rappahannock.

She has been involved in civic, community and church activities including President, Retired Teachers, former Church Clerk, Deaconness, Choir member, Usher, and Missionary for her home church, First Baptist, Washington, Va.

Additionally, she was the impetus; assisted by Bob Darby and others, in having the first Habitat for Humanity home built in Rappahannock.

Mother often times likes to quote one of her favorite poets, Langston Hughes, in reflecting upon her life. Hughes, in this piece writes in the dialect:

“I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor- bare.

But all the times I’s been a climbin’,

And reachin’ landin’s, and turnin’ comers, and sometime goin’ in the dark,

Where there ain’t been no light.

I’s still climbin,

And Life for me ain’t been so crystal stair.”

Dorothy Carter Butler’s life may have not been “no crystal stair”, but it certainly has had some golden moments and a silvery lining or two.