Roger C. Buck

It was a rocky experience when I meet my first live Buck. I was in 7th grade at Binford Junior High School, with new classes, new teachers, and new classmates. Rocky Buck was among them. With a mischievous grin and hair in tight curls that was threatening to turn into an Afro, Rocky enlivened the school and my life. He was "with it" in a way that I wasn’t — more politically engaged and at ease in junior high society. But he befriended me in his egalitarian way.

We were classmates for 6 years, graduating from Bloomington High School in 1972, an unbelievable 30 years ago! Rocky and I were cordial, but never close friends, and we didn’t keep up after our graduation.

I graduated from Indiana University a few years later with a psychology major. One elective course I took was with Linda Wessels, on basic philosophy of science. I remember reading the course catalog and noting the faculty in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. It listed Roger C. Buck. But I was not to meet him for another decade.

I went east for graduate work, studying at Benjamin Franklin’s university, the University of Pennsylvania. There I got into archival research at various university archives. When I moved to Washington, DC and my first post-graduate position at the University of Maryland, the Library of Congress and the National Archives were my favorite haunts.

As an historian of institutions, it was a natural step to find out something about my workplaces. That’s when I discovered Solon J. Buck, who served as the 2nd archivist of the United States, beginning his tenure during World War II. Later he was chief of the manuscript division as well as assistant librarian at the Library of Congress. Although he had died years before, I believe his spirit inhabited those sacred scholarly precincts.

This intergenerational story would not be complete without the middle link between Rocky and his grandfather Solon. Fortune smiled on me, and I met Roger when I became an IU faculty member in 1990. Although he had retired a few years before, he was around the Department frequently.

His presence was a lively one. He showed up to colloquia, went to lunch, and was always willing to talk. There was an underlying element of kindness in his gruff voice, whether he was discussing philosophy of science or the latest local gossip. When I asked about Rocky’s activities, there was a hint of paternal pride in his words.

When I worked on weekends in my Goodbody Hall office, Roger was often there, making coffee or spreading out his papers in the seminar room. As I became more interested in the history of the Department, Roger was a readily available source. His recollections went back to the early days, when Russ Hanson hired him to provide intellectual weight and administrative heft to the developing program. He served as Department Chair for nearly all of the 1960s. A few years ago, I conducted an informal oral history interview with Roger and Ed Grant, the co-founder of the Department with Hanson.

I met Lib Buck soon after I arrived, at a Department picnic or party, I can’t remember which. I was pleased to know the wife of Roger and Rocky’s mother. More recently I had the pleasure of meeting another lively Buck - Lee Jones - in connection with our service on the board of Hilltop Educational Foundation.

I am humbled by the opportunity to speak about Roger and his family. Roger’s work in the philosophy of science lives on in the annals of scholarship. Roger’s life lives on in his family. As a friend of Roger, I feel truly blessed to have shared some time with him in that spacious and serene space he created with his presence.

Remarks prepared for the Roger C. Buck Memorial Service, University Club, Indiana Memorial Union, 29 April 2002, 2pm, by James H. Capshew.