Barbara Templeton Buckley

1929 - 2024

Barbara Templeton Buckley

February 26, 1929 - December 14, 2024

On December 14, 2024, we said goodbye to our loving, kind, funny, charming, beautiful, and stylish mother, grandmother, and great grandmother Barbara Templeton Buckley. She lived 95 full years devoted to family, always ready for a game or an adventure, and she was a lively friend, colleague, and bowling league teammate. She touched many lives during her long, good life, and she knew she was loved and cared about by many.

We will remember Barbara for her unstinting joy and pleasure in her family, celebrating both the special and the ordinary times; for her wit and humor, often surprising and delighting her grandchildren with her sassy observations; her elegance, always dressing to the nines with perfectly coiffed hair and on point accessories; for her treasure trove of recipes for every occasion; and for her love of a card game with friends or grandchildren.

Barbara Joyce Templeton was born in Chicago in 1929, the only child of Mildred Gerlicher Templeton and Walter Minty Templeton. She grew up in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs, and she spent many happy summers with family in Montana and South Dakota. She graduated from Glenbard High School in 1946 and then attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa for two years, after which time her parents relented and allowed her to go the University of Colorado. Upon college graduation in 1950 she returned to Chicago and worked for the Federal Reserve Bank and for Armour & Company.

Barbara married Leland H. Buckley, Jr. in 1953. They were happily married for 55 years until Lee's death in 2008. Shortly after their marriage Barbara and Lee moved to Moline, and Barbara lived in Moline and East Moline for 64 years. In Moline she raised her three children before returning to work as a teacher's aide in the Special Education Department at Moline High School. She and Lee retired at about the same time in order to travel and spend more time with family.

Barbara moved to Portland, Oregon in 2017 to be closer to her son Steve, daughter-in-law Crystal, and granddaughter Elizabeth and husband Josh and their children Lucie and Joseph, who lovingly included her in their activities and gatherings.

Barbara is survived by her three children and their spouses, Stephen and Crystal Buckley of Portland, Oregon; Kendall and Rod Meyer of Mankato, Minnesota, and Reid and Anne Buckley of Park County, Montana; by her six grandchildren and six great grandchildren; and by her niece Susan Buckley of Edwardsville, Illinois. She left us all with a legacy of love, kindness, respect, giving, and caring. She is missed.