MINIS COLUMN: Hard worker known for sense of humor

Louisa Angelos is saving the last telephone message from her mother. It's something that will remind her how caring her mother was. Even when in her final weeks, Helen Nick Angelos Butler expressed love for her only child daily.

Butler grew up the daughter of Nick and Louise (Courtney) Angelos on their farm at Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Dupont Road. Her father, a Greek immigrant born in 1887, retained the values he learned as a child. He was strict about passing them on to his children.

"She would make sure I got into the house safely every night," says Angelos. "Even when she was ill, she would wait until I got inside and stay on the line while I locked the door and reset the alarm. Once she was satisfied nobody had come into my house, she would say, 'May the angels fly around you and keep you safe.' "

Butler was born April 18, 1936, and died on Sept. 29. She was personal secretary to retired lawmaker Arthur Ravenel Jr. for 38 years and head bookkeeper at First Federal Bank on Savannah Highway before that.

The farm, says her sister, Kiki A. Diasourakis, seemed to have every kind of animal imaginable. Butler, Diasourakis and their brother, G. Nick Angelos, each had regular farm duties. Working with animals and plowing or planting were their after-school activities.

That's what made Butler such a hardworking person, willing to take on any job and get it done, says her sister.

Butler's husband, Ronald Dewayne Butler, recalls his wife telling him about life on the farm.

"Helen used to ride the donkey when they were plowing and milk the goat. She'd also have to wring the chickens' necks and take the feathers off so that her mother could cook them."

One of the best things about Butler is that she never took herself too seriously, family members say.

"We were at the shops at Myrtle Beach and I wanted to leave and asked the lady to go and tell her, 'It's time for us to go,' " Ronald Butler says. She denied being married and described him as someone who had been following her around. She urged the store clerk to call security. He left the store and found an ice-cream shop to hide out in before they arrived.

Angelos says her mother, as Ravenel's personal secretary, worked behind the scenes to help make the new bridge a reality.

"She would tell Mr. Arthur that she was going to take his name off that bridge and put hers on. Every time I go over that bridge, I laugh."

Butler served her church by working with others to prepare food for Greek festivals and other special events, says Angelos. People loved her Greek rice salad, shish kebab, spanakopita, octopus, squid and the fruitcakes she made for gifts.

She and Ronald Butler recall one elderly Greek woman who lived alone and would call Butler every day after work to say she did not have anything to eat.

"Helen would carry food down there," he says. "She would be going through the front door and someone else would be going out the back door. Helen used to look in her refrigerator and it would be stacked full of food. But she kept right on taking food to her whenever she called.

"She was a good woman."

Reach Wevonneda Minis at 937-5705 or wminis@postandcourier.com.