• Courtesy
• H. Taylor Buckner

H. Taylor Buckner passed away quietly at home with the use of MAID, at age 86.

He was born in Louisville, Ky., the elder of two sons, to Hubbard George Buckner and Kate Tebbs (Helm) Buckner. His early years were spent in schools in Louisville.

After a very formative junior year at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Taylor graduated with a BS from University of Louisville in 1959. During a brief time at Indiana University, he met and married Judith Friedl and had a son, James Taylor Buckner. They lived in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., where Taylor earned his MA in 1964 and PhD in sociology in 1967, both from the University of California, Berkeley. While there, he wrote articles on police culture, rumor transmission and the transvestic career path and studied a flying-saucer cult, some of whose members thought he was a Martian. (He was six-five, and “everyone knows Martians are tall.”) Later he authored a book titled Deviance, Reality and Change. For more details, see tbuckner.com.

After teaching at San Francisco State College for a year, they moved to Montréal, where Taylor spent the next 30 years as a professor at Concordia University.

Several sabbatical leaves afforded him the chance to travel the world in 1973 and 1974, where he read the six o’clock news on ACTV in Osaka, Japan; improved his Spanish in Argentina; and then begin his MBA during 1979 and 1980. He graduated with an MBA from Hautes Études Commerciales, the business school of the Université de Montréal, in 1984.

While living in Montréal, Taylor founded a neighborhood organization — Shaughnessy Village Association — which greatly enhanced the ambience of a small, residential, downtown area of the city. The association, still very active today, was instrumental in preserving the historic Victorian and Edwardian architecture of the old homes in the area and preventing their replacement with high-rise buildings.

Taylor’s first marriage ended in divorce in 1969. In 1972 he met Jennifer Grove, and they were married in 1975.

He retired in 1996, and in 1998 he and Jennifer moved to South Hero, Vt., where Taylor began a retail shotgun business, Hero’s Arms.

He was predeceased by his parents and is survived by his wife of 48 years, Jennifer Grove Buckner, of South Hero; his son, James Taylor Buckner, of Sherman Oaks, Calif.; and his brother, John A. Buckner, of Louisville, Ky.

At Taylor’s request, there will be no visitation, funeral or memorial. Donations in his memory may be made to South Hero Volunteer Fire and Rescue Departments, 131 Community Ln., South Hero, VT 05486, and the McClure Miller Respite House, 3113 Roosevelt Hwy., Colchester, VT 05446.