[6] Butterworth began her career teaching at Ethel Walker School and then later taught history at her alma mater, Loomis Chaffee.

[6] While the couple lived in Kent, three of their four children were born,[7] before they moved to Sunset Farm in West Hartford, which Oliver and his father operated.

After the move, Butterworth became active with the League of Women Voters[2] and she became aware of an imbalance in the apportionment of representation in the Connecticut General Assembly.

A committed pacifist, she wanted an immediate end to the war, but after the conference felt that if the United States Government did not initiate a peace plan, with a scheduled withdrawal, the conflict would be prolonged.

[10] For decades Butterworth protested every Saturday, in West Hartford Center, against war, including those in Nicaragua, Iran and Iraq, as well as in opposition to nuclear arms.

[9] In 1975, Governor Ella Grasso appointed Butterworth to serve on the state's Public Utilities Control Authority and made her chair in 1978,[2][6] the first woman to hold the leadership position.

[5] Though she led the government body, in May 1979, Butterworth was fired by Grasso and then accepted the post as president of the Hartford College for Women.

[11] Butterworth traveled to Nicaragua in 1984 as an international observer to the first democratic election held in the country in ten years.

[13] By the 1990s, Butterworth was working as the town historian and served on the committee planning events for the sesquicentennial of West Hartford.