Nonagenarian has perfect attendance at John F. Kennedy Catholic School
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Clara Butterfield is a fan favorite at John F. Kennedy Catholic School’s extended day program. While the 90-year-old teacher encourages students to play among their peers, she enjoys forging relationships with younger generations.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
For decades, Clara Butterfield has served as a teacher at JFK’s extended day program. Born and raised in Washington, the nonagenarian has perfect attendance for this school year and loves every moment spent working with staff and students.
From her self-assigned seat on the park bench, Clara Butterfield keeps attendance and a watchful eye on students at play. Butterfield celebrated her 90th birthday May 11 and has perfect attendance this year at JFK School, where she serves as an extended day program teacher.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Clara Butterfield has perfect attendance.
“She didn’t miss one day of work this whole year,” said Kimberly Stevenson, principal at John F. Kennedy Catholic School in Washington. “She works … give or take 180 days. To be doing what she does at 90 years old… She is just so reliable and just so loving.”
Butterfield, who celebrated her 90th birthday with a surprise party, a tiara and a bingo-themed cake May 11, has served as the extended day program teacher at JFK School for decades, since her position with St. Hilary Church dissolved along with the Catholic school.
“She’s an inspiration. She loves God, she loves the kids, she loves her job,” said Heather Scanlon, a preschool aide who has worked alongside Butterfield for more than a decade. “She’s the Italian grandmother everyone wants their kid to have.”
The redheaded nonagenarian is certainly a grandmotherly figure to those in JFK’s after-school program. When she clocks in (“I’m not bragging about this, but I’m always the first person here, not because I want to be, it’s just that I am,” she smiled), Butterfield takes her assigned seat. The laid-back lady keeps attendance, a hawk eye on children at play and an open seat beside her.
“They know I care about them,” Butterfield said. “They’ll want to sit with me. The little things they come over and say to you; ‘Mrs. Butterfield, I love you.’ That’s what it is.”
Kids often plop down next to Butterfield to share stories, ask advice or seek comfort on hard days. When someone gets into a scrape, it’s to her they rush. She enjoys forging relationships with younger generations, but encourages free play and delights in watching students form friendships, create, imagine and run around together.
“They’re good kids. Forget the devices and you see how the camaraderie… They’re all playing. They pick out kids that they like and get along with,” she said, surveying the campus from her wooden bench halfway between the school and playground. “The group over there, they’re always together. They just do their own thing here and if there’s any trouble, then we step in.”
Butterfield stepped into the world of education roughly six decades ago, at the recommendation of a friend. She had no degree in education; back then, you didn’t need a teaching certificate to work with preschool and kindergarten kids.
“There was an opening at the Brownson House. The teacher left and (my friend) said, ‘You want to try it?'” Butterfield recounted, one eye always on the children. “She never saw me teaching or anything. I was flabbergasted. I mean, how do you know I can do this job?”
But she accepted the position.
“From that day on … I really loved what I was doing,” Butterfield said. “I don’t like to teach. I love to teach.”
While teaching is clearly Butterfield’s passion – during an interview on a recent weekday, conversation returned again and again to her job – the road to teaching was a fulfilling one.
During high school, she spent two summers working Massachusetts tobacco fields.
“We got to swim at Amherst College. We got to … walk to town, go to the movies. It was wonderful,” she said.
Following high school, Butterfield graduated from stenographer school and worked at the Pentagon for 15 months before returning home to Washington, where she and her husband, Charles, – a steel mill man – raised their oldest daughter, Marianne.
When Marianne was 18, Clara and Charles Butterfield welcomed son Sean into the world. Sixteen months later, Butterfield gave birth to her youngest daughter, Charla.
“I was the only pregnant mother in my daughter’s graduating class,” Butterfield said matter-of-factly. “I said, if I have one, I’m going to have two.”
While Butterfield has never strayed far from home – she lives one block away from the house she grew up in – she’s seen things, like the 1964 World’s Fair in New York and a pharaoh.
“The best place I went was to Chicago, whenever they had the King Tut display,” Butterfield said with a smile. “His relics – just to see that. That was so fascinating.”
Butterfield said the line for Chicago’s Field Museum was long. While she and her daughter waited to see the golden sarcophagus and other Egyptian relics, a Chicagoan invited the Butterfield women to join the Field Museum.
On a whim, “we joined,” Butterfield said.
When she got back to Pennsylvania, Butterfield regaled her mother with tales of the exhibit. Her mother wanted to see King Tut, so Butterfield hopped aboard a plane and headed back to Chicago.
“It was the next-to-last day for that to be there. We got there, there’s no line. We went to the door, we just couldn’t figure it out,” she said. “You had to be a member.”
Because she’d joined the museum during her first trip, Butterfield and her mother were able to ogle Egyptian treasures.
“We got in. (My mother) loved it,” she said.
Though her jet-setting days are in the past, Butterfield’s life is still an adventure. She’s an avid coffee drinker who begins each day with a cup of joe and two hours of reading (Butterfield is a fan of James Patterson’s novels) followed by prayers and crossword puzzles.
She hits the gym four times a week and reserves Friday afternoons for bingo.
“My daughter usually goes to see my great-grandchildren on Friday,” said Butterfield. “I said, ‘Not this chick. I’ve got bingo.'”
Jokes aside, Butterfield does enjoy spending time with her kids, grandkids and three great-grandchildren, all of whom live nearby. She preaches rolling with the punches – “Worrying does not change the future,” Butterfield said. “Just be happy.” And she takes pride in her independence: recently, the 90-year-old renewed her driver’s license.
She still paints her own nails, and dresses “different, not gaudy,” a fashion tip she learned from her mom.
And while she can chat at length about her life, her favorite books and how to make excellent coffee, she revels in recounting her favorite teaching moments. Teaching, you see, is Butterfield’s passion.
“I just marvel in it, I really do,” she said.
One of her favorite school moments is a Grandparents Day program she helped put on at St. Hilary. Butterfield and a co-worker wrote a poem for students to recite (she still remembers the poem: “I love my mommy, I love my daddy, I love my teacher, too. But the people I love most of all are grandparents like you, and you, and you!”)
As students rehearsed in the empty cafeteria, Butterfield told them their audience would clap. If anyone forgot the words, students should look for Butterfield, who would be mouthing the poem.
“Well, I’m on the sideline coaching. I’m saying, ‘If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be me,'” Butterfield recalled. “This little boy said, ‘If it wasn’t for you, there wouldn’t be Mrs. Butterfield.’ Because I pointed to me. The audience roared.”
Moments like that, Butterfield said, make teaching a joy. You never know what kids are going to say, she laughed, before adding, “I love teaching.”
Butterfield has no plans on retiring any time soon – she’s got a perfect attendance record to uphold next school year – but she’s begun thinking about her legacy.
“Just that Mrs. Butterfield cared about us and she did a good job,” she said, scanning the playground to ensure all her students were safe. “I think I did my job right. And I loved doing my job.”