Biography: Beverly Robinson Butterfield Whitbeck died on March 19, 2006 at age 90. She was born in Oklahoma City, OK on September 2, 1915 to Edward Spencer Butterfield and Davidzene Robinson Butterfield. She was baptized and confirmed at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City. On December 26, 1938 she was married to Frank Lynn Whitbeck at St. Paul Episcopal Cathedral and together they had two children, Edward Lynn Whitbeck in 1939 and Frank Butterfield Whitbeck of Little Rock, AR in 1947. Beverly was pre-deceased by her husband of sixty-four years, Frank Lynn Whitbeck in 2002 and her son Edward Lynn Whitbeck in 1965. She is survived by her son Frank Butterfield Whitbeck, his wife Elisabeth Rowland Whitbeck and their children, Jackson Forbes Whitbeck, Elisabeth Butterfield Whitbeck, Selby Rowland Whitbeck, Richard Wallace Whitbeck and his wife Sarah Shurgar Whitbeck. Beverly Whitbeck was a solid part of the “Greatest Generation”. After only three years of marriage, her husband volunteered to serve in the Army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the outbreak of World War II. Left at home to raise her first child, she volunteered at USO gatherings, helped sell War Bonds and traveled by train cross-country to meet her husband when his Army Troop Ship docked in New York City and San Francisco. After the war she and her husband moved to Little Rock, AR to work with Union Life Insurance Company based in Little Rock, AR. In 1946 Beverly and Frank learned that their son Edward had Muscular Distrophy. At that time the Little Rock School System had no mission to work with special needs children. Together Beverly and Frank Whitbeck helped shape the future of public schools not only in Little Rock but throughout Arkansas toward a required calling to work with special needs children. Before his death in 1965 from complications of Muscular Distrophy, Edward Whitbeck graduated from Hall High School and UALR, a feat previously unheard of for a child with MD. Beverly was a regular fundraiser for the Jerry Lewis Muscular Distrophy Telethon, the March of Dimes and was a frequent contributor to the Premature Infant Ward of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. When her husband decided to start his own business in 1955, Beverly did her part. Always a beautiful and gracious hostess at company gatherings, she also helped decorate the business office. At the first office of Pioneer Western Life Insurance Company(American Foundation Life Insurance Company) on Main Street in downtown Little Rock, the architect for a modern “ mid-air staircase” called for a decorative blue rope draped repeatedly from floor to ceiling. Beverly dyed a lengthy rope the requested color of blue in the family’s washing machine, which not only fulfilled the architect’s (Ed Cromwell’s) modern vision but also kept the family in blue clothing for many months. Beverly was active along with many other parents seeking to peacefully allow integration of the Little Rock Public Schools in 1957. When Little Rock’s high schools were closed in 1958, she helped create and support the Trinity Interim Academy, a private high school based at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, AR and the predecessor to the current Cathedral School and Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock, AR. When the Little Rock Public high schools were reopened in 1959, it was due to the efforts of many parents including Beverly and Frank Whitbeck participating in and supporting STOP(Stop This Outrageous Purge), the Women’s Emergency Committee and numerous other progressive groups influencing public policy to reopen public high schools in Little Rock. When her husband ran for the Democratic Nomination for Governor of Arkansas in 1968 she became his best advisor. Raised in a politically astute family in Oklahoma City. She could intuitively identify good political help from bad. When the Whitbeck for Governor campaign embraced gun control (after the tragic deaths in 1968 of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy) and recommended a statewide plan of consolidation of public schools (issues that Arkansans still have difficulty facing today) their less than one year venture in politics ended with the loss of the Democratic Party Primary. In 1995 when the Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by a truck bomb, the blast shattered the stained glass windows of nearby St.Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Oklahoma City. Beverly and her husband Frank were lead participants in an effort to rebuild and restore the damaged portions of the Cathedral. In 1998 when then President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton dedicated a memorial to those who died in the Oklahoma City bombing, they invited Beverly and Frank Whitbeck to attend the occasion with them. Whether at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Oklahoma City, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock (where the handicapped access ramp into the Cathedral built by the Whitbecks in the late 1950’s still serves those in need), at St. Michaels’s Episcopal Mission in West Little Rock, or in her later years at Christ Episcopal Church downtown Little Rock, Beverly Whitbeck could always be counted on to help achieve the mission of the church. Beverly was a member of the Women’s City Club in downtown Little Rock and the Country Club of Little Rock. She and her husband chose Little Rock as their home and helped make it a better place to live and work, providing economic opportunity for many and a progressive political environment for others to follow. The Whitbeck family would like to acknowledge the skilled care of many at St. Vincent’s Infirmary, especially Dr. Bruce Sanderson, and the loyal care of many in homecare givers, especially Georgia Babbitt, Gayle McKinney and Mary Harris. A funeral service will be held at Christ Episcopal Church at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, March 23, 2006 by the Reverend Larry Benfield. Burial will follow in Roselawn Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers memorials may be made to the Premature Infant Ward of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 W. Markham, Little Rock, AR.72205.