Frances Ann Barker Leeper Buss

1942 - 2022

Fran Leeper Buss, writer, educator, activist, was born March 3, 1942, in Manchester, IA, and died on July 19, 2022, in Tucson, AZ.  She spent most of her childhood in Dubuque, IA and graduated from the University of Iowa.  Her early marriage ended in divorce, but resulted in three wonderful children.  She co-founded the Women's Crisis and Information Center in Fort Collins, CO, in 1971.  She met David Buss at United Campus Ministry in Fort Collins; they were married in 1972. As he was finishing his seminary training she became interested in ministry and pursued her Master of Divinity at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO.  At Iliff she developed an abiding interest in social ethics, which found expression throughout her life. Part of her education at Iliff was done long distance as she and David jointly served as ministers in the Campus/Community Ministry in Las Vegas, NM.  She graduated from Iliff and was ordained in the United Church of Christ in 1976.  During her time in Las Vegas she became acquainted with and started interviewing Jesusita Aragon, the last of the traditionally trained midwives in the area still delivering babies. She continued her interviews with Jesusita after moving to Whitewater, WI.  Jesusita's life story was published as La Partera: Story of a Midwife in 1980, which embarked Fran on a career as an oral historian. Over the years since then she has published four more oral histories and analyses, with an additional one pending publication.  She also wrote a successful young adult novel, Journey of the Sparrows, and a memoir, also pending publication. She and David moved to Tucson in 1987.  She decided to delve deeper into history and returned to graduate school at the University of Arizona.  She earned her Ph.D. in 1995.  She has won a number of awards over the years.  Many of her unpublished oral history interviews are archived at the Schlesinger Library of the History of American Women housed at Harvard University. Her journals, kept over the course of some 50 years, additional tapes and transcripts of interviews, and unpublished articles and books are also housed in the Schlesinger. Her 125 oral histories are of poor and working class women from around the country. Her work has always been dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless. She was a feminist starting in the early 1970s.  She organized, taught, and wrote with a heart for social justice. She is survived by her husband of 50 years, David; her three children: Kimberly Buss (David Frankel), Lisa Evans, and Jim Leeper (Joanne Corcoran); her seven grandchildren: Jacob, Eli, and Anna Frankel, Maya, Rachel, and Noah Evans, and Nina Leeper, her sister Barbara Jennings (L.A.) and her brother Jim Barker (Nancy) and many nephews, nieces and grand nieces and nephews. A celebration of her life will be held on September 25, 2022 at 2:00 pm MST at Rincon Congregational United Church of Christ. Please mask.  It will be on Facebook live on the Church's Facebook page and posted on the church's Youtube channel.  A gift in Fran's memory may be made to Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera, www.atcf.org, 3707 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Austin, TX   (512) 474-2399.