Butler, Ann “Annie” Emma (1824–1868)

By Michael W. Campbell

Michael W. Campbell, Ph.D., is North American Division Archives, Statistics, and Research director. Previously, he was professor of church history and systematic theology at Southwestern Adventist University. An ordained minister, he pastored in Colorado and Kansas. He is assistant editor of The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia (Review and Herald, 2013) and currently is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism. He also taught at the Adventist International Institute for Advanced Studies (2013-18) and recently wrote the Pocket Dictionary for Understanding Adventism (Pacific Press, 2020).

First Published: March 20, 2025

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Ann “Annie” Emma Butler was an Adventist missionary to Europe. She worked closely as an assistant and translator for Michael Belina Czechowski (1818-1876).

Her History

Butler was the third of ten children born to Ezra Pitt (1796-1875) and Sarah (1799-1866) Butler. In the 1850s, according to her brother, she was struggled to fully embrace the counsel given by Ellen White and Samuel Rhodes during their visit to their home.¹

She served as secretary to Michael Belina Czechowski, the Polish preacher who pioneered the work of the Adventist Church in Europe. She sailed there with his family of six on May 14, 1864, thanks to support from the first-day Evangelical Adventists in Boston.² While in Europe, she lived in the home of Albert Vuilleumier ³ (1835-1923) until her death.⁴

Legacy

Her fellow workers testified that she played a valuable role in the establishment of the Adventist Church’s work in Europe. According to John N. Andrews, much of the good accomplished by Czechowski, happened because of her assistance. Her premature death greatly curtailed his ministry. Andrews in 1875 wrote:

It is my conviction, and I think it proper to state it here, that the good accomplished in Europe by Eld. M. B. C. was largely due to the wise counsel and valuable assistance of sister A. E. Butler, at that time a member of his family, but now sleeping in death at Tramelan. Her services as translator and general assistant were such that he could not have done without them. Indeed, when her labor ceased and other helpers took her place, the work of Eld. C. soon ended in sorrow to the people of God.⁵

Czechowski recognized her contribution to the work in Italy and Switzerland when he described her as the best “fellow-laborer in the Lord’s vineyard,” and he reported to others how he considered her to be “the blessing of our holy mission in Europe.” She served as editorial assistant for a periodical, a translator, a secretary for correspondence, and a counselor, and she helped out on many levels in various areas of ministry.

After only four years in Europe, she died in Tramelan, Switzeralnd, on August 23, 1868, at age 44. Although she only lived a brief life, she contributed in a tangible way to the formation of the first group of Sabbath-keeping Adventists in Europe.

She was one of the earliest Adventists to leave North America to share the Adventist mission overseas, the first Adventist missionary to die in mission service, and the first Adventist woman to serve as a foreign missionary.⁶

Sources

Andrews, J. N. “Switzerland.” ARH, September 23, 1875.

Fortin, Denis. G. I. Butler: An Honest but Misunderstood Church Leader. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2024.

“Our First Woman Missionary in Europe.” ARH, January 17, 1985.

Notes

Denis Fortin, G. I. Butler: An Honest but Misunderstood Church Leader (Pacific Press, 2024), 76.↩
Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, s.v. “Czechowski.”↩
Benjamin Calmant, “Vuilleumier, Albert (1835-1923),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventism, February 13, 2025, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=AHD5.↩
See note from Obit for Albert Vuilleumier, ARH, April 19, 1923, 22.↩
J. N. Andrews, “Switzerland,” ARH, September 23, 1875, 92.↩
“Our First Woman Missionary in Europe,” ARH, January 17, 1985, 12.↩