Harold Butler was a man who always had an energetic ear-to-ear smile. It’s apparent from the many photos of him with his friends and family, and the way those who knew him want to remember him. His life story is what his younger brother calls “an inspiration.”
Butler, the oldest of seven siblings, was the owner and CEO of Butler Properties, a real estate agency located on 16165 Monterey Road. According to friend and co-worker Donald Cowan, he was one of the first African-Americans to start his own business here in Morgan Hill in 1987.
Harold had been to the hospital in previous months before his death from a bladder infection. On Dec. 22, 2011, he didn’t show up to work or answer phone calls. Hi brother, Robert, went to his home to find him in front of the TV. He died that day at the age of 63.
Originally from Chicago, Butler moved to Morgan Hill about 42 years ago. Yet from 1969 to 1970, Butler’s life changed drastically. In December 1968 he was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War at the age of 20. Sent to Vietnam in May 1969, he returned home in September after an injury. His younger brother Robert said his brother was on his way to Saigon for a night mission with fellow Marines when an attack occurred. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a veterans hospital in Wisconsin, Robert said his brother told him. It was then he discovered he was paralyzed from the waist down. He was one of the few survivors.
Upon returning, he told doctors he was determined to walk down the aisle – regardless of his now physical disability – at his nuptials to Kathryn, whom he met in April 1969 before his call of duty.
After vigorous physical therapy sessions, with legs strapped into braces and using crutches for his arms, he used his upper body strength to hop/walk down the aisle.
“It was the first time anyone saw him walk after his accident. It was really an inspiring moment for everybody,” Robert said.
When he moved to Morgan Hill in 1970, he also decided to build his own house in Jackson Oaks.
“He was a paralyzed Vietnam veteran, at 21, building a house. That’s what I’m talking about,” said Robert.
“He’s always been an inspiration. He was very strong, and very powerful,” said Cowan. “He had the strength of a professional football player, the balance of a wrestler and the determination of a long distance marathon runner. He inspired people around the office.”
Also in the 1970s, Harold and Kathryn dedicated their lives to Jehovah’s Witness, active in the Morgan Hill and the Gilroy Gavilan congregations until his death. Robert said Harold was a pioneer, meaning he dedicated 70 hours a week going door to door, on crutches while maintaining a real estate office.
“He never ever complained. Never ever,” said Robert, who moved here in 1984 to be closer to Harold. “You can’t imagine the things he had to do every day. Getting out of bed for him, was an ordeal. Getting into a car, going to the bathroom … every move that people take for granted, for Harold, it took him at least five minutes and he never complained.”
Robert said Harold used his crutches and leg braces until he reached his late 50s and then began using his wheelchair with more frequency. Even then, he rarely allowed people to push his wheelchair, preferring to move it himself. Robert encouraged him to get a motorized wheelchair, but Harold said “No, I need the exercise,” recalls Robert.
For the past several years Robert was Harold’s ‘hands’ helping him around the house whenever he needed.
“I found a joy in doing it, even though sometimes it would be inconvenient. But he would never know that.”
Cowan, a former Live Oak High School teacher, said Harold also volunteered in the 1990s at Live Oak’s Computer Business Academy for six years, serving as a mentor to youth.
“He reminded me of President Franklin Roosevelt because you didn’t notice most of the time that he was physically disabled,” said Cowan, who met Harold at Prospectors Property Management before Harold started Butler Properties. When Harold started his own agency, Cowan followed him knowing that he wanted to continue working with him, which he did for more than 20 years.
“He was salesman of the month, month after month, even salesman of the year. I would go ‘How can this guy do it?.’ And then as soon as you met him, and saw his magnetic personality, that smile on his face, you could see that he had charisma. He was a leader,” said Cowan.
Through Butler Properties, Harold even helped bring a McDonald’s to Morgan Hill, selling the property brought through the real estate agency.
Harold, with no children of his own, attended every graduation and important life moment in Robert’s family, since his other five siblings live mostly in Texas and Chicago. Harold was proud and present when Robert won Teacher of the Year last June for the Cambrian School District in San Jose.
An avid jazz fan, Harold would attend festivals in San Jose and surrounding areas, and enjoyed and supported the theater.
“Losing him, I lost my best friend because I shared all my thoughts, stories, that he’s taken to grave with him,” said Robert. “I’m going to miss sharing those things with him that I needed to share with a person that I could trust.”
