Raymond Gene Butterfield

Raymond Gene Butterfield died in Phoenix on October 27, 2025. He was 87. He was born on August 20, 1938 in a Italian-American family that measured love in finished chores. Early on, he decided that a paycheck and a handshake should weigh the same. He split shakes that would hold other people's roofs. A cedar shake splitting froe oiled nightly kept hurry honest. Colleagues still mention a cedar shake splitting froe oiled nightly. He married Betty in 1960. They kept a house that stayed modest when the neighborhood did not. They raised a son and a daughter through public schools and ordinary weather. After Betty died in 2018, he kept the routines that still made sense: the walk, the garden, the Sunday call. Neighbors remember someone who swept the sidewalk past the property line when weather had been unfair. He preferred the hour before a town fully wakes. Phoenix was home enough that he never rehearsed an introduction. The work gloves still keep the shape of a grip.