Lifetime trustee Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Bambach Buck Reynolds ’40 H’98 died on Monday, March 23, 2020 at her home in Key Largo, Florida. She was 101 years old.
Born in Brooklyn, Peggy’s family moved to Staten Island, where she graduated cum laude from Wagner College in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Fresh out of college, Peggy became Wagner’s director of publicity in 1940. Three years later she married Orlando J. Buck, the son of Congressman Ellsworth Buck from Staten Island. Orlando was one of the 19 soldiers flying home on leave who died on Sept. 18, 1944 when their C-47 transport plane crashed into solid ice on an unnamed, uncharted peak 16 miles northeast of Mt. McKinley, Alaska.
Following Orlando’s death, Peggy Buck signed up as a volunteer with the Red Cross for war relief work. Immediately after V-E Day, she was assigned to staff a Red Cross R&R club for American service members in Nice, on the French Riviera. In a 1948 Paris wedding, Peggy married Bill Reynolds, who later became president of Litton Industries International. They lived in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Cal., Zurich, Switzerland and London, England before returning to the U.S. in 1980, dividing their time between a Middleburg, Va. farm and a pied-à-terre in Manhattan, N.Y.
A lifelong supporter of her alma mater, Peggy and husband Bill were elected to Wagner College’s Board of Trustees in 1996. In 1998, they were awarded honorary doctorates, and in 2008 Peggy was named a lifetime trustee.
The generosity of Bill and Peggy Reynolds has benefitted numerous projects on the Wagner College campus, including the Spiro Sports Center expansion, our paved footpaths and the renovation of Reynolds House. Peggy left her alma mater a very generous bequest, whose magnitude is still being calculated.
