Celebrating Robert Heinlein: A Day to Remember in Butler, Missouri

An Unexpected Discovery at Butler Public Library

The first time I visited Butler Public Library was on Christmas Eve, 2021, almost exactly three years earlier. Just as it had been then, the library was decked out for the holiday season—but this time there was a quirky twist. Right by the entrance stood a giraffe sculpture sporting a Santa hat. Clearly, the library had decided to skip the usual holiday suspects like reindeer and snowmen for something a bit more unexpected!

Gwyneth and I headed straight into the Heinlein room, which at first glance looked just as I remembered from my first visit. I asked her to snap a few photos of me—one by the large poster commemorating the Heinlein Centennial event from 2007 (which took place in Kansas City, Missouri), and another beside a beautiful piece of artwork by Frank Kelly Freas that portrays Heinlein and his wife, Virginia.

After taking some photos of me, Gwyneth headed into the main area of the library to work on some financial planning for the upcoming year. Meanwhile, I stayed behind in the Heinlein room, taking a few more pictures of my own.

That’s when something caught my eye—something I didn’t remember noticing on my previous visit.

Lying on a shelf beneath a framed Resolution by the Missouri House of Representatives (expressing their lasting appreciation for the life and work of Heinlein) …

… was a large folder:

On the front of the folder was an illustration of Saturn as seen from its moon Titan – and the name Robert Heinlein.

The two captions on the front of the folder read:

A CRESCENT SATURN, its rings edge on, looms above the horizon of Titan, largest of its satellites. The sky is bluish since Titan has an atmosphere. It is the only moon in our solar system known to have one.

Quote: “The universe is what it is, and we are what we are; mistakes lose their power when we admit them, even ignorance ceases.” – Robert Heinlein

Curious, I opened the folder and immediately realised I’d come across a little gold mine: a scrapbook of fascinating material about Robert and Virginia Heinlein and their connection to Butler.

The first page was an illustration inviting people to meet Heinlein, “Dean of Science Fiction Writers”, at a reception at 7pm on Thursday, April 17th 1980 at Butler Public Library, the very library I was standing in. I admit I felt a little thrill of excitement at this discovery.

I turned the page and immediately came across a number of letters from Bill Thornton, who served as Mayor of Butler from 1978 to 1982, and from Heinlein himself.

As I read through those letters, it became clear that Mayor Bill Thornton had extended a heartfelt invitation to Robert Heinlein for a special “Heinlein Honor Day”, to take place in the spring of 1980. The event was intended to celebrate the life of Butler’s most famous son and acknowledge his remarkable achievements. The mayor’s plans included not only a day filled with festivities but also permanent tributes to Heinlein’s legacy. Thornton proposed installing a marker or plaque at the house where Heinlein was born and placing signs along Highway 71, both north and south of town, proudly proclaiming Butler as the birthplace of Robert Heinlein.

Perhaps surprisingly, Heinlein accepted the invitation. At this point in his life, he often declined invitations due to age and ill health.

There’s only one letter from Heinlein himself in the archive. In it, he, quite reasonably, states that he’s certain that no-one in Butler will recall him. He was born in the town in 1907 and left in 1909 and hadn’t lived there since.

He goes on to state that his birthplace, his grandfather Dr. A.E. Lyle’s house, was demolished sometime between 1960 and 1976, making it impossible to place a plaque there. He concludes the letter with good wishes.

If you’ve read my previous account of my visits to Butler, you’ll know that Heinlein was mistaken when he thought that his birthplace house had been demolished. In fact, a handwritten note at the bottom of the letter states: “Misinformed – home still stands”.

Heinlein makes a second error in this letter when he claims to have left Butler in 1909. In reality, his family relocated to Kansas City in December 1907, when Heinlein was just five months old. However, his connection to Butler remained alive through frequent visits – Heinlein’s mother, Bam, regularly brought her children back to see their Grandfather, Dr. Lyle, until his passing in 1914.

After a year of careful planning, the long-awaited “day of honor” for one of science fiction’s greatest writers finally arrived: April 17, 1980. Later, Virginia Heinlein would simply refer to it as “Robert’s Day.”

The Heinleins had just completed an around-the-world cruise the previous day and had flown to Kansas City, Missouri. Robert Heinlein was 72 years old at the time and this was to be his last ever visit to the town where he was born – the town where his parents met and married in 1899, and where his beloved Grandfather Lyle lived and, in 1914, died.

So how did it go? Fortunately, we have some fascinating newspaper reports from the time which tell us, and which are included in the scrapbook in Butler Public Library. Here’s an account of the day based largely on the most detailed of those reports, the one in ‘Bates County News Headliner’, dated April 24, 1980.

The quotes from Heinlein and others are reproduced exactly; everything else from the newspaper article is rewritten but keeps the exact meaning of the original. In other words, this is what happened:

Next: Robert Heinlein’s 1980 Visit to Butler: A Grand Homecoming