Nellie Butler

Nellie Butler was a lady’s maid and seamstress at the Eustis Estate from 1923 to 1945. Nellie was born to Irish immigrants in 1863 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. She started work as a servant later in life and became a maid at Eastover, the Ernest and Margaret Bowditch estate in Milton, in 1910 around the age of 50. Ernest was a prominent landscape gardener who designed the grounds of the Eustis Estate. When their daughter, Elizabeth Bowditch, married Augustus Eustis in 1923, Nellie Butler came with Elizabeth to work in her new home.

The Eustis family fondly recalled spending time with her here in the service wing of the house, which was the only staff room the children could enter. They described her charming room full of plants and personal touches that was “down the slide” from the night nursery. This room was connected by a ramp due to the difference in height between the service wing rooms and the rooms in the family section of the house.

“Well, we’d all come down to visit Nellie and chat. She was welcoming. She would come around with a teapot to water the plants. She said she’d give them a cup of tea but it was really water. She had the best radio, we listened to all kinds of things. The sewing machine – she was great at sewing and mother wasn’t. She had a little shrine to Saint Francis feeding the birds, which made an impression on me. We all loved feeding the birds.”