Harry Joseph Butler

Harry Butler died on Saturday, the 14th of October 2017, at age 69. Death was caused by complications resulting from a brain edema and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, a viral infection of unknown origin diagnosed in January 2017.

Harry was born in Houston on the 28th of August 1948, to L. C. and Irene Anna Troy Butler. The oldest of four children, Harry was named in honor of Harry Troy, an uncle killed four years earlier during World War II. He graduated from Mount Carmel High School in 1966 and the University of St. Thomas in 1970 (B.A. English).

Harry moved to California in the late 1970s and lived in the Los Angeles area with his beloved companion Audrey Clare Grundy, a ballet dancer and teacher also known by her stage name, Clare Duncan. Harry and Clare moved to Galveston upon his retirement in 2015.

Following his retirement, Harry enjoyed listening to music (mostly classical), watching films (mostly foreign), reading (mostly the classics of English literature), and caring for Clare.

He is survived by Clare, his brother Christopher, his wife Elaine and son Colin of Houston, his sister Pamela and husband Michael Jamison of Atlanta, and his sister Debra and her husband Roy Hanus of Beeville.

Harry was buried in a private funeral service earlier in October.

Friends are cordially invited to gather and share remembrances of Harry from six o’clock until eight o’clock in the evening on Monday, the 13th of November, in the grand foyer of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.