Memorial Doorway for Willis Howard Butler Dedicated

Willis Butler died on October 22, 1930.

1. The memorial had been erected during the past week [October 12-17] at the head of the west aisle in the sanctuary.
• Only a few people had seen it prior to the dedication.
2. Three committees were responsible for the memorial:
• A committee on memorials, headed by Charles Gross
• The prudential committee, chaired by William Corbin
• The society’s committee, led by Arthur Gregory
3. Contributions to the memorial included donations from people not connected with the church.

1. “The entire service was appropriate to the occasion.”
2. From Mackenzie’s address: “The devout spirit of a minister like Willis Howard Butler is a precious gift from the Lord Himself.  No greater work can Christ Himself produce in our realm of human life, and that greatest work of His He did upon the person of our beloved minister and made him for us all a devout spirit.”
3. From Farmer’s sermon: “God’s greatest gift to man is the power to remember.  Indeed, without memory man would not be a man at all, for all that distinguishes him from the brutes goes back ultimately to the fact that he can consciously and deliberately rethink his past.”

1. William Mackenzie had been acting pastor of Asylum Hill Congregational Church since Butler’s death and was also president emeritus of the Hartford Seminary Foundation.
2. Herbert Farmer was a minister who had recently joined the faculty of the Hartford Seminary Foundation.

Unattributed, “Memorial Entry Dedicated at Asylum Hill church,” Hartford Courant, October 19, 1931, page 20.