Born in New York City

Priscilla Langford Buckley was born on April 17, 1921, in New York City into a large, wealthy, and devoutly Catholic family. She was the sixth of ten children born to William Frank Buckley Sr., a successful oil-industry lawyer and businessman, and Aloise Steiner Buckley. The Buckley children were raised amid considerable privilege, spending time between the family's estate in Sharon, Connecticut, called 'Great Elm,' and homes in Paris and South Carolina.

Growing up in this environment, Priscilla and her siblings—including her younger brother William F. Buckley Jr., who would become the most famous conservative intellectual of his generation—were steeped in classical education, multiple languages, Catholic faith, and vigorous intellectual debate around the dinner table. This upbringing instilled in her the sharp wit, command of language, and political conservatism that would define her decades-long career in journalism.

Her birth marks the beginning of a life that would prove historically significant not through political office or activism in the conventional sense, but through her quiet, decades-long stewardship of one of the most influential conservative publications in American history, National Review, where she helped shape the modern American conservative movement from behind the editor's desk.