Elijah Butler at the Retired Men's Club in Martinsburg, 1973
A January 1973 shows Elijah Irvin Butler at the Retired Men's Club in Martinsburg. He was 80 in this photo, and he died three months later.
Elijah, who went by “Lige,” was born in nearby Darkesville in 1892, one of the youngest of eight siblings.
His mother's father, John Joseph Bell, was an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland, who settled in Bunker Hill to farm in the mid-1800s.
All of Lige’s other ancestors had been in the area since at least 1800. His paternal grandfather was from White Hall, Virginia, but settled in Darkesville. His paternal grandmother was a Hutzler.
Lige didn’t go to school beyond 5th grade. He was 12 when his father, a stone mason, died of pnemonia. When he was 20, his 28-year-old brother Kirk, also a stone mason, died of heart disease.
At 24, Lige married a woman named Leona Roberts. They lived on Virginia Avenue and raised three children: Irvin, Nelson and Mary.
Lige and Leona Butler
A tall man at 6’4”, he worked as a laborer, an auto mechanic, and later as a painter for the hosiery mill Dunn Woolen Co.
The Retired Men's Club had about 600 members in the mid-1960s and was housed on the first floor of a rented two-story home downtown.
A 1964 newspaper article describing the men’s club and its women’s counterpart said, “Neither club has any grandiose ideas. Their aim is to provide a downtown meeting place where relaxation and fraternizing control.”
Gambling and alcohol were prohibited on the premises, but coffee and doughnuts were always on hand for members to enjoy.
Lige and Leona Butler
Lige Butler, 2nd from left, with his siblings in 1927