William F. Buckley, Jr. - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

In 1950, Buckley married Patricia Aldyen Austin "Pat" Taylor (1926–2007), daughter of Canadian industrialist Austin C. Taylor. He met Pat, a Protestant from Vancouver, British Columbia, while she was a student at Vassar College. She later became a prominent fundraiser for such charitable organizations as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at New York University Medical Center and the Hospital for Special Surgery. She also raised money for Vietnam War veterans and AIDS patients. On April 15, 2007, she died of an infection after a long illness at age 80. After her death, Buckley seemed "dejected and rudderless," according to friend Christopher Little.

The couple had one son, author Christopher Buckley.

William F. Buckley Jr. had nine siblings, including sister Maureen Buckley-O'Reilly (1933–1964) who married Gerald A. O'Reilly, the CEO of Richardson-Vicks drugs; sister Priscilla L. Buckley, author of Living It Up With National Review: A Memoir, for which William wrote the foreword; sister Patricia Buckley Bozell, who was Patricia Taylor's roommate at Vassar before each married; brother Fergus Reid Buckley, an author, debate-master, and founder of the Buckley School of Public Speaking; and brother James L. Buckley, who became a Senator from New York and was later a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Buckley co-authored a book, McCarthy and His Enemies, with his brother-in-law, attorney L. Brent Bozell, Jr., (Patricia's husband), who worked with Buckley at The American Mercury in the early 1950s when it was edited by William Bradford Huie. Buckley's youngest sister Aloise Buckley Heath was a writer and conservative activist. His nephew is political consultant Bill O'Reilly.