She was Michigan's first licensed female architect, one of the founders of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, active in Greek life, and a founding member of the Detroit Business Women's Club, the first professional women's club in the nation.

It led the transformation of churches, especially Methodist, from Sunday meeting halls to centers of daily community and social activities.

Butterfield was among the three co-founders, along with publisher Emma Spoor, and manufacturer's agent Grace Wright, of the Detroit Business Women's Club in 1912.

The national BPW organization is made up of federations from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

As an associate of the George Banta publishing company, Butterfield combined her design abilities and her knowledge of heraldry to design the coats of arms of several sororities and fraternities, among them her own sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta (ΑΓΔ), coat of arms in the spring of 1906.

She designed the chapter houses of Alpha Gamma Delta at Syracuse and Michigan State universities.

She died on March 22, 1958[4] and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her work in the field of architecture in 1990.