Mildred Butler Engdahl, 1897-1987

A Memorial by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

I suppose most people share memories of loved ones with family members. But I have no family other than distant cousins, and only a very few friends who knew my mother. I want to give her more of a memorial than simply the dedication to my book Enchantress from the Stars.

She too was a writer for young people, and some libraries still have her books. Under her maiden name Mildred Allen Butler, she wrote two YA biographies, Actress in Spite of Herself: the Life of Anna Cora Mowatt (Funk & Wagnalls, 1966) and Twice Queen of France: Anne of Brittany (Funk & Wagnalls, 1967; a Junior Literary Guild selection; UK edition, Bailey Brothers and Swinfen, 1972) plus two historical YA novels, Rapier for Revenge (Funk & Wagnalls, 1969) and Ward of the Sun King (Funk & Wagnalls, 1970). But she didn't begin this until her late 60s, at a time when young people's interest in historical books was on the wane; otherwise she would have written many more.

Mildred Allen Butler was born in 1897 in New England, where she spent her childhood. During her teen years her family lived in St. Louis, returning each summer to Heron Island off the coast of Maine (on stories of which I grew up). She attended Wellesley College and after graduation, taught high school English for several years.

However, her major interest was in drama, especially community theater work, and she left teaching to become the director of the Little Theatre League of Richmond, Virginia (1925-1927) and the Portland Civic Theatre of Portland, Oregon (1927-1929). She then moved to Los Angeles, married, and later directed the Cheviot Hills Community Players there. She earned a master's degree in drama during a year when we both attended the University of Oregon, and again was a director at the Portland Civic Theatre in the mid-1950s. She also directed many Children's Theater productions in Oregon and in Santa Barbara, and published some plays for children.

My mother and I were very close, not only while I was growing up, but always. During my adult life we were more like sisters than mother and daughter, despite our 36-year age difference. We took two long trips to Europe together. Though I had my own apartment for a few years, I gave it up as soon as we could settle in the same city, and from then on we jointly rented or bought our homes. Her own mother, my grandmother, lived with us until her death in 1965 at the age of 101. We had a live-in helper to care for her, and when, after she was gone, Mother did not want to be alone all day while I worked, I welcomed the opportunity to become my mother's full-time companion and thus gain time to write.

It proved to be an ideal arrangement. We moved back to Portland, which I had always preferred to Southern California, and for a while we both were publishing (here we are correcting galleys!) But as Mother aged, she developed health problems, and so for the last decade of her life we were both virtually homebound. Her mind remained sharp, and she continued to be my best friend despite her physical limitations.

In this picture she was 84 years old. That was the year I got my first home computer. The one below was taken a year later.

Mildred Butler Engdahl died in 1987, when she was 90. I will never stop missing her, and wishing she were here to share my later life and see the new editions of my books.