Early Life and Education
Buchanan was born in Washington, D.C., a son of William Baldwin Buchanan (Virginia, August 13, 1905 – Washington, D.C., January 1988), a partner in an accounting firm, and his wife Catherine Elizabeth (Crum) Buchanan (Charleroi, Washington County, Pennsylvania, December 23, 1911 – Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 18, 1995), a nurse and a homemaker. Buchanan had six brothers (Brian, Henry, James, John, Thomas, and William Jr.) and two sisters (Kathleen Theresa and Angela Marie, nicknamed Bay). Bay served as U.S. Treasurer under Ronald Reagan. His father was of Scottish, English, and Irish descent and his mother was of German ancestry. He had a great-grandfather who fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army, which is why Pat is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. and admires Robert E. Lee. Through his mother, he is a fourth cousin twice removed of singer Marilyn Manson.
Of his southern roots, Buchanan has written:
I have family roots in the South, in Mississippi. When the Civil War came, Cyrus Baldwin enlisted and did not survive Vicksburg. William Buchanan of Okolona, who would marry Baldwin’s daughter, fought at Atlanta and was captured by General Sherman. William Baldwin Buchanan was the name given to my father and by him to my late brother. As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I have been to their gatherings. I spoke at the 2001 SCV convention in Lafayette, LA. The Military Order of the Stars and Bars presented me with a battle flag and a wooden canteen like the ones my ancestors carried.Buchanan was born into a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools, including the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College High School. As a student at Georgetown University, he was in ROTC but did not complete the program. He received his draft notice after he graduated in 1960. However, the District of Columbia draft board exempted Buchanan from military service because of reactive arthritis, classifying him as 4-F. He received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia in 1962, writing his thesis on the expanding trade between Canada and Cuba.
Read more about this topic: Pat Buchanan
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“The great passion in a man’s life may not be for women or men or wealth or toys or fame, or even for his children, but for his masculinity, and at any point in his life he may be tempted to throw over the things for which he regularly lays down his life for the sake of that masculinity. He may keep this passion secret from women, and he may even deny it to himself, but the other boys know it about themselves and the wiser ones know it about the rest of us as well.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Whatever may be our just grievances in the southern states, it is fitting that we acknowledge that, considering their poverty and past relationship to the Negro race, they have done remarkably well for the cause of education among us. That the whole South should commit itself to the principle that the colored people have a right to be educated is an immense acquisition to the cause of popular education.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)