Niki Butcher Birth Year: 1944
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FGCU, Phi Alpha Theta, Community History Interviews, (Spring, 2014). Name: Clyde Butcher Birth Year: 1942. Name: Niki Butcher Birth Year: 1944. Keywords, Descriptors: Environmental activists, photography, politics, Everglades, Ellen Peterson, nature, FGCU. Location: Phone Interview, Cape Coral, Florida, and Venice, Florida. Collection Summary: Clyde and Niki Butcher, originally from California self-identified hippies and environmental activists. The Butchers discuss their many years in political activism on environmental preservation education and legal actions. Personal histories include connections to nature, artistry, and the loss of their son Ted Butcher. Professional histories include art, photography, and ecotourism swamp walks. Clyde and Niki Butcher Photographer and wife Christopher Harrison Student Interview date: October 18, 2013 Key: CH: Christopher Harrison CB: Clyde Butcher NB: Niki Butcher Cristopher Harrison: So today, we are talking with Clyde and Niki Butcher and the date is October 18, 2013. The time is 10:08 am and I would like to start off by asking some general identifying questions if I may. Firstly, if you could, state for the recording your names. Clyde Butcher: Clyde Butcher. Niki Butcher: I am Niki Butcher. CH: And what year were you born? CB: I was born in 1942. NB: And I was born in 1944. CH: Thank you. And how would you both describe yourselves? NB: [Laughter]. CB: Probably hippies. 1 NB: Yeah, we are probably from that generation. We are from California, grew up doing all of the marches and all of that stuff, so yeah. CH: Very good. NB: Raised our kids on a sailboat, not inside the box. CB: Well, completely outside. NB: [Laughter]. CH: Very good. NB: As with Ellen CB: Yeah, boxes are to be indoors. CH: That's quite funny because I'm actually using a box to prop up the recording equipment so I'm staring right at a box as we're talking so that’s very good CB, NB: [Laughter]. CH: So, excellent. Thank you. So are there any perhaps professional or official titles that you might be able to use to identify yourself for others who will be listening in on the recording later on? CB: I am a black and white landscape photographer since 1961 and doing the same thing for the most part for 50 years. NB: We make our living being artists and selling Clyde's black and white landscapes. We have two galleries and a few galleries outside of the state and we have lived in Florida since 1980 and Clyde has photographed Florida since that time. CH: And where do you live at the present moment? CB: We live in Venice, Florida about a mile and a half away from the dark room and gallery so we can bicycle to work. CH: Very good. So the first question I would ask is...we have been talking to some of the Happehatchee Center of Estero, Florida. Would you be able to discuss your connections to the center, or specifically to Ellen Peterson, the late founder of the center? CB: I would say we are both connected to Ellen, not the facility. We're really not into...we're basically just going with the flow. I don't know how to describe what we are. NB: We're real busy (laughter) We live in Venice which is about an hour and a half maybe from Happehatchee and maybe if we had lived in Fort Myers we might have gotten there occasionally but mostly when I was with Ellen, she is who she is or was who she was. She was not a pretender and so it 2 didn't matter if we were a part of the thing she created or not. Her vibes went beyond that and we are not particularly joiners of organizations and stuff because we don't have time. So, no, we weren't part of Happehatchee. CH: Okay, thank you for that. Stemming from that, what would be your strongest memory about Ellen? CB: Oh, actually, probably...I remember the time we were celebrating her rescuing Fisheating Creek and going down the eastern part of the creek and in the water, getting in the water, and photographing her memorial tree. That was probably the tree where she wants to be...that was her life...in her later days [00:05:00] at least in Fisheating Creek. She really loved that area there. NB: I've got so many memories. My goodness! We would get together... have you interviewed Brenda Anderson? She, Brenda Anderson and Ellen and one other girl, which is whoever had time, and I would get together every year for about four or five years in a row, I can't remember, once a year and go on kayak trips. And Ellen, who was quite a bit older than me, could out kayak me like crazy! I could not believe the strength that woman had and she would tell stories about her life and I really wish I could remember all of them. But we… on a bicycle trip, we would take kayaks and bikes...we did both for the three days we were together. After this is over, I can give you the information for Sandra Friend, who actually went on one of these trips with us and brought video equipment and Ellen talking about her life and the things that she did and was a fun conversation was well worth the conversation and worth to add to your repertoire here. CH: Well, thank you. NB: But, stories or memories of Ellen were when we went kayaking to Silver Springs...excuse me...yeah, Silver Springs and it is a long way from the launch to the spring itself. So we were, and not being as strong as Brenda or Ellen, taking us other two girls quite a long time to get up there and then we had to turn around and come back and I was absolutely exhausted and so Ellen got in my kayak. It was a was a two-man kayak so we traded people and Ellen got in with me and Melanie got in with Brenda. And Ellen took off in that kayak and it was like a motor was attached to that kayak. I could not believe that this woman, who died two years later, that she could do this. It was just amazing. So that was one of the strongest memories and how physically strong she was and in such good shape. CH: So, you mentioned it was two years before her passing...would be 2009, I believe. NB: I think so. CH: Very good. When would you say you first met Ellen? What year and what circumstance? CB: [Laughter]. Well, she also came down to fix up our gallery in Venice of a swamp walk events. I think that was probably 2000- NB: Right, right. CB: And the swamp walks, she just loved anything that had to do with the environment. I think around 2000 is when we really got involved with her. NB: Right, right. We meet her when she was doing the Fisheating Creek thing in the late 80s I 3 believe...in the early 90s, somewhere in there. We met her during that, but we did not get to know her until later. And the way we really got to know her through Brenda Anderson and Brenda...I don't even know how that happened. We got to open our gallery in Big Cypress which is in the middle of the Everglades ecosystem and surrounded by a million acres of wilderness and one of the things we wanted to do was to get people to love the swamp and the only way to do that is to get them into it so we started doing Swamp Walks and Ellen and Brenda would come out and help lead swamp walks. So we got to do that once a year and we got to know both of them very well and from there, Brenda, Ellen, I, and Melanie for a while would go on out and do the kayak trips together. That was really fun. The other fun thing...the other fun memory of hers, a story of hers at a very young age, she decided she wanted to bicycle across the United States and this is not something that women did [00:10:00] in her age group...it was probably in the 40s. Then she would go clear across the United States, a single woman, by herself on a bicycle. But she did it and that is what Ellen was. She just did what she thought she wanted to do and thought what was right and she would do it. She was just a really determined woman and very, very much admired. I'm 70, almost 70 and I told her when I was in my late 60s that I would like to grow up to be just like her. CH: Very good. I was going to, at this point, ask if you were present with her passing ceremonies, the get-together at Happehatchee or at Fisheating Creek? NB: Yes, both of them. I was. Clyde was unable to attend. CB: Fisheating Creek. NB: Yes he was at Fisheating Creek, he did. CH: And, yes… NB: The one at Happehatchee was...before she died, they put her in the center and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. And I thought how wondrous it as that the people whose lives she had changed gathered around to let her know they loved and cared about her before she died and not after she died.