[1] Butler had become interested in aviation after seeing Sir Alan Cobham's Air Circus in the early 1930s,[1] and so began to take flying lessons at Kildonan Aerodrome, with pilots such as John Currie.

Butler spent time in England teaching during World War II, and later studied in Rome in the late 1960s.

[3] In 1953 she published a biography of Mother Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the Sisters of Charity, A Candle Was Lit.

Following this publication, Butler referred to the "apostolate of the pen" and wrote a prodigious number of letters to lonely people, prisoners, and occasionally to the national newspapers.

She attained special permission from her order to donate her body to the Royal College of Surgeons for use in medical research.