~~Karl Robert Buckman, who served in World War II, worked on the North Dakota railroad, served more than 25 years in the F.B.I. and raised an extended, loving family, died on Saturday. He was 90.
Born in Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1926, Mr. Buckman grew up in nearby New Salem, from a family of early pioneers. He helped finish the expansion of North Dakota’s railroads, hammering through high school.
He served nearly two years in the Pacific theater of World War II as a “tin can sailor” on a naval destroyer. After the war, he graduated from University of Minnesota with a degree in economics. Thinking he would find better job prospects on the east coast, he packed up his car with his brother, Bill, and drove east. He landed in Philadelphia, and through a chance interview, at the offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He was charmed by a young secretary at the bureau, Dolores Dowd. Never one lacking for courage, he asked her out within months of starting there. They married in 1954 and moved to New York City, where he worked as a special agent and supervisor for 25 years before retiring from the bureau and moving to Toms River, N.J.
He is remembered as a man who did right by all he met, a true example of the Greatest Generation. He had a warm understanding, an insatiable thirst for knowledge (fed by reading the entire New York Times daily) and a generous, trusting soul.
Mr. Buckman is survived by his wife of 62 years, Dolores; his three children, Joan Corasaniti, Patti Richards and Robert Buckman; and eight grandchildren, Nicholas, Caroline and Elise Corasaniti; Christopher, Emily and Graham Richards; and Mary Kate and Keri Anne Buckman. He is also survived by his two siblings, William “Bill” Buckman of Colorado and Marie Tourne of California.
A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Patrick’s Church in Chatham, N.J., on Thursday, August 18, at 10:30 a.m. Visiting hours, Wednesday, August 17, from 3 to 7 pm., at the Wm. A. Bradley & Son Funeral Home, 345 Main St. Chatham, NJ. For further information, or to send the family a condolence, please visit, www.www.bradleyfuneralhomes.com.