John J. Buckley

Burlington – Mr. John J. Buckley, Jr., of Waltham, died Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at Atria Longmeadow in Burlington. He was 90.

John was born to the late John J. and Catherine (Glasle) Buckley on March 5, 1926. Throughout his childhood he was raised in Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Brighton. He attended the Blessed Sacrament School and Mission Grammar School.

Following his 8th grade graduation John enrolled in the Boston Trade School where he studied to be an electrician. After school he worked alongside his father in the Hingham Shipyard.

John always enjoyed telling stories of his youth, especially his favorite one about when he was a teenager and would visit the Hanlon Family (of Hanlon's Shoe Stores) who had a home in Hyannis Port. They lived in the same neighborhood as the Kennedy family and John would play touch football with all the Kennedy boys; Robert, John and Teddy, and even had Mrs. Rose Kennedy serve him lemonade.

While attending the Boston Trade School, World War II broke out and John left to enlist in the United States Army. He joined the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper and was trained in the use of heavy weapons.

One of his highlights during the war was meeting Mickey Rooney. Both men were in the U.S. Evacuation hospital in Belgium. John was hospitalized for severe frozen feet while in a fox hole and Rooney was hospitalized and recovering from a bad cold.

Once John came back from the war he returned to school and joined the I.B.E.W. Local 103 in Boston. The first company he worked for was Kenworthy and Taylor Electrical Contractors, where he worked for 40 years until the company closed. One of his biggest jobs while working here was the construction of the Marriott Hotel in Newton in 1970, the "white elephant" as John would call it.

After his employment with Kenworthy and Taylor John worked for the Northern Electric Company.

While employed here he worked on the new construction of malls including the Arsenal Mall in Watertown, the Lafayette Place in Downtown Crossing, Boston and Copley Place in Boston.

He was a life member of PFC John M. Sullivan, USMC Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 10334 in Waltham.

In 1960 John married Vivian May Brown, a native of Beebe, Vermont. The couple married in East Windsor Locks, Connecticut and shared 48 years of happy marriage until she passed in 1998.

John and Vivian enjoyed dancing at Mosley on the Charles Ballroom and the Totem Pole Ballroom at Norumbega Park in Newton – a nightclub hot spot in the late 50's and early 60's which drew in big name acts like Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and Dinah Shore.

For their 25th wedding anniversary they traveled to Hawaii for a month and had a chance meeting with the actor Tom Selleck while there. At that time in 1985 he was the lead actor in the show Magnum P.I., however, the couple did not watch the show and had no idea of his celebrity status. They liked the red Ferrari he was in and decided to take a picture of him in it, "because he was such a nice guy and took the time to tell them of all the places they should see while on the island." They didn't know they met and talked to a famous actor until they got back to the states and shows the picture to family members who had to explain who Tom Selleck was!

John leaves his children, Brenda Lee (Buckley) Cahoon, and her husband, Christopher, of Burlington and John Johnson Buckley, III, of Billerica; his grandchildren, Jaime, Joshua and Jason Cahoon, all of Burlington, Brianna and Brenden Buckley, of Billerica; and his sister, Genevieve Wilcox, of Abington. John also leaves behind many nieces and nephews and wonderful neighbors who he always enjoyed helping out and who, in later years, helped John out.

John was predeceased by his siblings Martha Hallissey, William Buckley, Elizabeth Clark and Alice Hudson.

Family and friends will honor and remember John's life by gathering for calling hours in The Joyce Funeral Home, 245 Main Street (Rte. 20), Waltham on Friday, June 24th from 4 to 8 p.m. and again at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning before leaving in procession to Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted Church, 880 Trapelo Road, Waltham where his Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Burial will follow in Newton Cemetery, Newton.

Memorial donations may be made to Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care, 20 Mall Rd., Burlington, MA 01803 or to Atria Longmeadow, 42 Mall Rd., Burlington, MA 01803.