Early Life
Buckley was born November 24, 1925, in New York City to lawyer and oil baron William Frank Buckley, Sr., of Irish descent, and Aloise Josephine Antonia Steiner, a New Orleans native of Swiss-German descent. The sixth of ten children, as a boy Buckley moved with his family from Mexico to Sharon, Connecticut, before beginning his first formal schooling in Paris, where he attended first grade. By age seven, he received his first formal training in English at a day school in London; his first and second languages were Spanish and French, respectively. As a boy, Buckley developed a love for music, sailing, horses, hunting, skiing, and story-telling. All of these interests would be reflected in his later writings. Just before World War II, at age 13, he attended high school at the Catholic preparatory school Beaumont College in England. During the war, his family took in the future British historian Alistair Horne as a child war evacuee. Buckley and Horne remained lifelong friends. Buckley and Horne both attended the Millbrook School, in Millbrook, New York, and graduated as members of the Class of 1943. At Millbrook, Buckley founded and edited the school's yearbook, The Tamarack, his first experience in publishing. When Buckley was a young man, his father was an acquaintance of libertarian author Albert Jay Nock. William F. Buckley, Sr., encouraged his son to read Nock's works.
As a youth, Buckley developed many musical talents. He played the harpsichord very well, later calling it "the instrument I love beyond all others". He was an accomplished pianist and appeared once on Marian McPartland's National Public Radio show "Piano Jazz". A great fan of Johann Sebastian Bach, Buckley said that he wanted Bach's music played at his funeral.
Read more about this topic: William F. Buckley, Jr.
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