Florence Buckley, a registered nurse and community activist who lived in Northwest Philadelphia for 45 years, died peacefully in her sleep Oct. 16. She was 77. While the exact cause was not known, her family suspects it was a cardiac event.
"I want people to know how much my mom cared about making the world a better and healthier place, no matter what she was doing,” her son Emmett Neyman said last week. “She spent the last 25 years of her career as a pediatric nurse, both at DuPont Children's Hospital in Delaware and as a school nurse at Wissahickon Charter School in Germantown from 2003 until 2016."
Neyman, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who now works as a software engineer for Facebook in Seattle, said she worked hard to help her Germantown community, including "fighting against SEPTA's proposed natural gas plant in Nicetown, campaigning and volunteering for local progressive candidates for Philadelphia government and, more recently, trying to save the Chestnut Hill West SEPTA train line.”
Buckley was a passionate nature lover who traveled extensively throughout the United States, visiting all 50 except Hawaii. In 2016, she embarked on a cross-country road trip, visiting friends and family across the nation while stopping at as many national parks as possible. During this journey, she spent several days at the Standing Rock Reservation, protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
"This past spring she and I visited Alaska together and went to Denali National Park,” Neyman said. “She also enjoyed local nature, and loved hikes in the Wissahickon and around Fairmount Park."
Buckley was born in Northeast Philadelphia, but her father's military career meant frequent moves during her childhood. She lived in Okinawa, Oklahoma, Germany and right outside Mount Vernon, Virginia, before 1960, when the family settled in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, a small town about an hour south of Pittsburgh.
After graduating from Waynesburg High School in 1965, she moved to Washington, D.C. During her years in the D.C. area, she worked as a cataloguer in the Library of Congress and as a stockbroker. Seeking like-minded people who shared her vision for a more fair and inclusive world, she relocated to Eugene, Oregon.
In Eugene, she worked at Jackrabbit Press and Womyn's Press, two cornerstone establishments of the feminist, counterculture lesbian community. There, she immersed herself in politics, fighting for the rights of women, the gay and lesbian community and the working class.
In the mid-1970s, Buckley moved to Philadelphia, where she would spend the rest of her life. She worked for numerous progressive causes, including the Resistance Print Shop in the Spring Garden community. She lived in Germantown for the last 21 years of her life, a community she deeply loved, according to Neyman. Before that, she spent nine years in Mount Airy, having moved there from her first Northwest Philadephia home on Walnut Lane in Germantown.
Buckley was deeply involved in Philadelphia's gay and lesbian community, particularly through playing softball in the City of Brotherly Love Softball League. She was also very active in Philadelphia's gay bar poker scene, playing several times a week in bars and restaurants throughout the city.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, inspired by her younger sister, Lillian Regel, she returned to school to study nursing at West Chester University, graduating in 1990. Her former colleagues fondly remember her as "Nurse Florence."
In 1997, Florence began a new chapter in her life as the mother of twin boys, Emmett and Leo. She lovingly and proudly continued to refer to them as "her boys," even after they grew into kind and loving adults. Florence was in a same-sex relationship with the boys' birth mother, Freyda Neyman, for about 10 years. They separated when the twins were about 6 in 2003.
Buckley raised her sons to be compassionate, fun-loving and resilient, with strong values in social justice matters. She was also a caring sister to Henry, Francis, Karen Eisemann, Joseph, Michael, and Lillian Regel and a dear cousin and friend to Pert Weston.
"My mom taught me to never compromise my beliefs and values, even if society pressured me to do so," said Leo Buckley Neyman, Florence's other son, who now lives in Montpelier, Vermont. "She fought tirelessly to make this world a better place for the marginalized and underprivileged, even though she knew it would be a never-ending uphill battle."
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to one of the following: The Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia, whose Wissahickon location is located just around the corner from her house, or Food and Water Watch, which fights for sustainable food, clean water and a livable climate for all. Buckley organized a fundraiser online for this organization this year for her 77th birthday.
Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com
