In a 2018 interview with a videographer from the Juno Beach Centre, long-time Vancouver-area Catholic volunteer and philanthropist Hugh Wall Buckley recounted his army service during the Second World War – service that saw him survive a harrowing landing on D-Day and then a further 11 months of action crewing a Stuart light tank assigned to Canada’s Sherbrooke Fusiliers Regiment.
“When you are faced with death, possibly any day, you do change your view on life, I must say,” Buckley told an interviewer. “Lucky? Oh God, yes! God was very good to me.”
His reference to the Almighty should not have surprised those who knew Buckley, who died on Jan. 6 of this year at the age of 95. Indeed, before and after his Jan. 20 funeral at Sacred Heart Church in Vancouver, he was universally eulogized as a man of deep faith who put that faith into action through multiple acts of service during his long and distinguished life.
“He was always involved in helping those who maybe couldn’t help themselves,” said Mark Buckley, one of Hugh’s four children, all of whom spoke prior to the funeral Mass. Hugh Buckley was predeceased by his wife, Trudy, in 1999 and two of his three brothers.
Son Peter recalled that his father always wore a crucifix and would often advise him, “There is only one thing that counts, and that’s to get to heaven.” His father’s faith was crystallized during the preparations for D-Day, Peter said, and remained strong until his final day on earth.
After the war, Hugh Buckley joined the Newman Association of Vancouver while attending the University of British Columbia, and he served as president of the Catholic organization three times during his seven-decade membership.
“We are very proud of him, and feel honoured to have him be a part of us for a long time,” the association stated on its Facebook page following Buckley’s death. “He was an avid supporter of the Newman movement,” and was active until last year.
Buckley had a successful career as a civil engineer, serving as the City Engineer of Surrey (and, in 1980, as a one-term member of that community’s city council). He also spent several years working on water projects in Ethiopia.
Former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm began his political career on Surrey council, where, in the mid-1960s, he developed great respect for Buckley’s professional abilities. “I came to know the other side of Hugh when we both became involved in the Cursillo Movement,” Vander Zalm recalls. “He was very committed, took a leadership role, and was always very exemplary in his practice of the Catholic faith.”
Vander Zalm says that Buckley’s unique combination of professional expertise and deep faith led then-Archbishop James Carney to choose him to be in charge of the design and construction of the facilities for the 1984 Papal Mass in Abbotsford, a highlight of Pope John Paul II’s visit to B.C. “He had the most difficult job of us all and everyone, including me, was worried about Hugh getting the massive job completed on time and on budget,” Vander Zalm recalls. “Hugh admitted that he had a lot of help from God.”
Buckley was an early supporter of Langley’s Redeemer Pacific College, which was founded in 1999 and is now known as Catholic Pacific College; the college’s website lists him as a Regent. “He really was a remarkable man,” says fellow regent Michael Garisto. “He had a brilliant mind.” Buckley’s commitment to service was an example of a man putting his faith into action, Garisto says. “I really believe he lived a true, Catholic faith.”
Buckley was also quick to stand up for what he thought was right, and to let others know it. He often wrote letters to editors of newspapers, and, when he thought affairs at RPC/CPC were not being properly conducted, took legal action.
In his later years, he assisted the Sisters of the Child Jesus in real estate matters, helped the Talitha Koum Society expand its facilities for addicted women in recovery, and volunteered with L’Arche Greater Vancouver, helping people with developmental disabilities.
Although a man of substantial wealth, he sold his Crescent Beach home and, at age 80, chose to live in a simple room near Sacred Heart Church on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside so he could better serve the needy and the addicted. He was a core member of Agape Street Ministry and the Good Shepherd Ministry until declining health forced him to retire three years ago.
Good Shepherd volunteer Linda Reis was deeply touched by Buckley’s service. “For me, he was full of humility,” she says. “His faith is what made him who he is – faith and action very much connected.” There was, Reis says, “a sense of holiness about him.”
The remembrance card distributed at Buckley’s funeral Mass contains a quotation, from the Gospel of St. John, that everyone who knew him would agree is entirely suitable for someone such as Buckley who devoted so much of his life to service. It reads, “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.”
Hugh Buckley’s remains were laid to rest next to Trudy’s at the Gardens of Gethsemani in Surrey.
