Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1903 Lucky Bag:

BUTLER YOUNG RHODES

Dusty.

Buzzard (1). “Santee” squad. Wrestled for the Prince. Great ladies’ man and has a dainty lisp. Chews when on duty and hits the pap for it. Awfully devilish and quite cute.

Loss

Butler was lost on November 3, 1924 when he “tripped on a ladder and plunged to the steel floor” of the hold of the supply ship USS Rappahannock (AF 6). The ship was at Vallejo, California at the time.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Seaman George Clark had been missing from the Rappahannock for five days when his body was found in the supply hold of the ship. Butler went to help but was overcome by the gases that arose from the hold, lost his grip on the hatch ladder, and fell backward to his death.

The Rappahannock was known as the “jinx ship” of “Rotten Row” at Mare Island. The ship was being dismantled and prepared for scrapping. Only a few officers and a skeleton crew were on board.

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Butler married Sarah Virginia Ryan in Norfolk on January 2, 1906. Their two children were Virginia (later Patricia,) born in California in February 1910, and Butler, Jr., born in West Virginia in August 1912. Butler, Jr., died in 1992 in Sacramento.

In August 1910, Butler’s wife sent an $8 donation to the Babies’ Milk Fund in Baltimore. She was in San Diego at the time, and the newspaper commended her for her remembrance and generosity to this fund which helped babies in the tenements receive proper nourishment.

In June 1914, Butler and his wife were on the podium for the launching of the submarine tender Fulton at the Fore River shipyards in Quincy, Massachusetts. Butler was on the U. S. S. battleship North Carolina at the time. The submarine was christened by Mrs. Alice Crary Sutcliffe, the great-granddaughter of Robert Fulton. She christened the ship with Robert’s famous words: “The liberty of the seas will be the happiness of the earth.” Robert invented the first steamboat and the first workable submarine boat.

In late April 1924, Butler, his family, and mother-in-law sailed from Cristobal, Canal Zone to New York City.

Butler’s father Barbour was a salesman, a postmaster and a mayor of West Point, Mississippi. His mother was Mary. His siblings were: Mai, Oma, Annie, John, Thomas, and Robert.

He was survived by his wife and parents; he is buried in Mississippi.

Career

He was temporarily the commanding officer of Baltimore (Cruiser No.3) on four different occasions in 1911, 1912, and 1913.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together, or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.