January 5, 1928 – June 15, 1994
“Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
When Joseph Aaron Buckles was born on 5 January 1928, in Kansas City, Kansas, his physician father, Joseph H Buckles, was 52 and his mother, Emma Eldora Scott, was 42. His mother died when he was about two years old.
The family moved frequently. Buckles, his sister Jane and his father moved first to Sumner County, Kansas and later to the small village of Thayer, Kansas. By the time Buckles was 15, he was an ordained minister and attending Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. His field of study was religion and international relations. He was also involved in debate and won a state oratorical contest for his condemnation of the internment of Japanese Americans. He graduated from Southwestern at age 19, while also serving as the assistant minister at the local Methodist church.
It was while at Southwestern that he met Winfield native and fellow Southwestern student Theresa Knapp, who would become his wife. After additional schooling in Illinois, the couple moved to his first church in Morganville, Kansas. Joe and Theresa had two children, Sandy Kathleen, born before the move, and Joseph Aaron III, born while the family was posted in Morganville.
After a few years in Morganville, he moved on to churches in Minneapolis and Wichita, Kansas and then Chicago. He was a graduate of Garrett Theological Seminary and received a master’s degree in Christian education from Seabury-Western Seminary in Evanston. He pastored the First Congregational church of Evanston and Hyde Park Methodist Church for 8.5 years. For two years he served at the Ecumenical Institute. He then served for 22 years at churches in Brookfield, Skokie, Oak Park, Olympia Fields and finally Plainfield in 1971. While at the United Methodist Church in Brookfield, Joe exchanged churches with a bishop in Pune, India. Over the years he spent vacations preaching and teaching in England, East Germany, Switzerland, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Japan, as well as India.
Three distinct images will be fondly remembered by those who knew and loved Joe.
- The first is a man of great intellect and a relentless yearning for knowledge. His intellectual pursuits and love of travel took him to Japan, Denmark, India, England and Africa, where villagers walked 3-4 miles to hear him preach.
- The second is a man with a dry sense of humor and a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
- Thie third, known best by those closest to him, is a man moved to strong action by righteous indignation. He met in Mayor Daley’s office with others to assist in the desegregation of Chicago public schools. He became active in the Civil Rights movement, marching with Martin Luther King, and traveling to Mississippi where, on one occasion, he was jailed for attempting to attend a whites-only church accompanied by Blacks. Theresa said, “He always stood up for those who needed help. It usually meant standing out against the crowd. He sometimes faced opposition by the church heirarchy and parishioners. In a sense, he was ahead of his time.”
In 1991, he accepted a position at Plainfield United Methodist Church in Plainfield, Illinois. He suffered a heart attack and died while attending the United Methodist Northern Illinois Conference in DeKalb. He and Theresa are both buried in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Joe loved the Lord, the world church, and the congregations which he served. He grounded his life in prayer, the study of Gods Word and the love of Jesus. Those who were associated with him, were truly blessed, for in knowing him they deepened their walk with Jesus.