Hope Butler

Elsie Hopestill "Hope" Butler Wilson (August 18, 1893 – January 26, 1984) was an American ambulance driver, canteen operator, and relief worker in France and Serbia during World War I and in occupied Germany in the postwar period. She organized a unit of women volunteer ambulance drivers with Marguerite Standish Cockett.

Hope Butler in uniform, from a 1918 publication.

Early life

Elsie Hopestill Butler was the daughter of Robert Gordon Butler and Mary Leland Thorp Butler of New York City.^[1] She grew up in Orange and South Orange, NJ.^[2][3] Her sister Marjorie Butler Harrison was active as a clubwoman in Philadelphia.^[4][5] Her other sister was Eleanor Butler Marindin.^[6] Their great-grandfather was Benjamin Franklin Butler, attorney general in the Andrew Jackson administration.,^[7] and their uncle was N. Howard Thorp, who was instrumental in preserving cowboy songs and verse.

In World War I

Hope Butler and Marguerite Standish Cockett, an American doctor, "organized the first American ambulance unit driven by women in the French army."^[8] They wore uniforms as French soldiers, and were housed with them. Later they joined the Red Cross in Serbia, and built a canteen^[9] as part of the Women's Division of the YMCA.^[10] After two years in Europe, Butler returned to the United States to give lectures and raise funds for war work,^[11][12] then was back in Europe for post-war efforts, including a turn on the YMCA's women's baseball team, touring to entertain American troops.^[13]

Butler, like some other women volunteers, wore her hair short while working in Europe, a fact that was considered newsworthy at the time.^[14] "One couldn't keep one's hair clean, getting under cars to mend them, sleeping in garages, on planks anywhere," she explained, "so I cut mine off."^[8] In 1918, Butler served as a courier for the British delegation at the Allied Congress of Women in Paris.^[8] She was honored with a decoration by the French Government after the war.^[15]

Personal life

In 1925, Hope Butler became the third wife of Francis Mairs Huntington Wilson, a writer and former diplomat, when they wed in Zurich.^[16] She was widowed when he died in 1946.^[17] She was still alive in December 1951 when her mother's will was probated.^[18]