James Gordon Button
James Gordon Button, 91, went to be with the Lord on July 18, 2007 following a two-month illness. He retired in 1979 from a civil service career with the Department of Defense at Defense Electronics Supply Center and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Button, a Business Administration graduate of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, had also performed the duties of treasurer for a
number of years at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Springfield, Ohio.
James Gordon and Sarene (a.k.a. Sherry) his wife of 60 years, raised three boys. Mr. and Mrs. Button (Jim and Sherry), members of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church since the early 1960's, moved to
Springfield, Ohio from Karlsruhe, Germany where Jim was an officer in the U.S. Army in the 1950's.
While they were in Germany they had their third son, Robert, who, now a Vice President for BP resides in Katy, Texas with his wife Diane, a former engineer for Amoco - currently assistant to the senior high
youth pastor at Grace Fellowship, UMC., and their second daughter Kelsey who is attending Cinco Ranch High School. Their first daughter Allie is attending Vanderbuilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where she is a pre-med major.
Prior to living in Europe the family was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Earlier, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, Captain Button was in the U. S. Army Signal Corps and Sherry was executive secretary to the Flight Surgeon at the base hospital. Here the couple had their second son Stephen Ray (residing in Springfield, Ohio) who has recently retired from Clark State Community College where he was the graphic artist. Before that they were stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
Earlier at Fort Meade, Maryland, the young married couple had their first son, Jimmy, who now is a much loved resident of Montgomery County Developmental Center in Huber Heights, Ohio.
Sherry, who had recently arrived at Wright-Patterson from teaching high school in Iowa, met Jim and were married in 1947 before the Signal Corps took Captain Button for a two-year stay in occupied Japan. His post-war tour of the central pacific took him to Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and Eniwetok. Earlier he had been stationed in the Aleutian islands of Alaska. During World War II he manned radar stations all along the
California coast. Before the war, Lieutenant Button taught military courtesy to aspiring officers at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.
James Gordon was born in Greenwich, New York. Shortly thereafter his family moved to Hebron Township in Washington County, New York which was the home of prior generations of the Button family. Gordon, as he was known to the inhabitants of Slateville, where he and his family lived, went to Hebron schools and then to high school in Granville, New York. Gordon demonstrated a practical ability for design, engineering and hands-on construction in building a family vacation cabin at Green Pond, a lake on his parents land in 1940.
His father, also James G. Button, and his mother Ina Grout Button, gave this cabin to Gordon and his sister Marjorie. Marjorie and her family who lived in Slateville and later Troy, New York, enjoyed the
cabin while Gordon was touring the world with the U.S. Military and while he was pursuing his second career and family life in Springfield, Ohio. Upon Gordon's retirement in 1979, he and Sherry were able to
spend many beautiful New York summers at Green Pond visiting with New York and Vermont relatives and many lifelong and new found friends.
When one was around Gordon you had to be thinking all the time. He was a wordsmith. His communication style and subtle, profound sense of humor was deliberate, always cerebral, and intended to provoke contemplation.
Gordon, or Jim to many locally in Ohio, was the true definition of a gentleman. Neither he nor his wife Sherry was ever heard to speak an unkind word to, or about, another soul.
He was dedicated to being the perfect provider for his family; he succeeded. He and Sherry are the most frugal individuals one will ever meet. He was loyal and true to his fellow man, his God and his country. He was an inspiration to all who were seking a model for dignity.
The Button family would dearly like to thank those family members who are scattered across this blessed nation, our New York and Ohio friends and neighbors, and our Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church family, for your advice, support, love and kindness.
Funeral service will be held Saturday, July 21, 2007 at 10:30 a.m. (viewing from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.) at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1801 St. Paris Pike, Springfield, Ohio 45504; burial to follow at Ferncliff
Cemetery in Springfield, Ohio with Full Military Honors. Flowers may be sent to the church on Friday, July 20 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1 to 5 p.m. The family is being served by THE JONES KENNEY ZECHMAN Funeral Home.
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