Residence: Camden
Party: Republican
Employment: Nurse practitioner
Education: Regis College, 1999
Statement: Butterworth did not respond to emails or phone calls. The following is from the Camden Maine Republican Town Committee website, edited for space: “[Butterworth] married her high school sweetheart and finished college and graduate school while raising two daughters. Susan became the first in her family to obtain a college degree and a master’s.”
“Susan and her husband Jeff live in Camden. They moved from Maynard, Mass. in 2011. They love to hike and enjoy Maine coastal village life. When Susan is not taking care of patients, she takes her granddaughter Aubrey for sailing class at the CYC. Susan and Jeff sail their 28-foot Pearson Mirage and love to hike so Camden was the perfect place for them to move.”
“The plight of persecuted people, and the value of political freedom, are personal to Susan. Susan’s interest in politics stems from a desire to use her medical experience to serve her community, but also, to ensure that she can leave the heritage her mother gave her to Susan’s own grandchildren. That heritage is freedom and opportunity. As an eight-year-old girl Susan’s mother, Dana, lived in displaced persons camps. Her family was forced to flee its home twice – first from communists and then because of Nazi persecution. Both times, they narrowly escaped with their lives.
“Susan sees parallels between the totalitarian persecution her mother’s family experienced and the current ‘cancel culture’ and ‘the woke’ and government coercion. The increasingly divisive and destructive socialist policies that Susan and Jeff sought to escape by moving to Maine from Massachusetts seem to be taking root here. For Susan’s mother, Dana, it is a frightening flashback to the days before her family had to leave their original home.”