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Genevieve Buck entered the newspaper business when it was still brutal and male-dominated, when women were considered secondary.
But over the next decade, Buck became an influential and internationally acclaimed fashion reporter and editor, business reporter and columnist, and historian. She did it with an unforgettable touch. She was also beautiful in person as a print.
Columnist Mike Royko, a colleague and friend of hers who both worked for the Chicago Daily News in the late 1960s, said shortly after Buck stepped out of the elevator where they and others had once ridden, “There’s the most famous dame in this whole building.” He said.
Buck died Sept. 6 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage and more than two decades of ill health. She was 89.
“Jane was in fashion for the many years I worked at the Tribune,” says former Tribune writer Judy Heverdges, who worked with Buck. “She pays great attention to detail—in the details of designer dresses, the trends on the streets of Chicago and beyond, and most importantly, in the details of the stories she writes.”
Genevieve Carol Wisniewski was born and raised in Joliet on December 18, 1932, the daughter of Hattie and Leo Wisniewski and the youngest of their four children.
Attending St. Francis Academy and receiving a scholarship to St. Francis College, she stayed close to school, edited the school paper, and 1. How to thank He graduated in 1954.
As she later told an interviewer, “When I was studying English literature, it never occurred to me that I could work in a newspaper.”
But she joined the public relations department of the American Laundry Institute, and there she began to learn and write about fabrics and fashion. That led to a job as a reporter in the Chicago office of a national publication called Women’s Wear Daily.
In the year She married Robert Buck in 1962 (they divorced in 1993) and left her job two years later to raise two children, Greg, born in 1964, and Michelle, who arrived two years later.
In 1967, she was hired by the Daily News as a fashion reporter. In the year She was hired by the Chicago Tribune in 1971, where she worked for more than 30 years as a fashion writer, fashion editor, writer, and business reporter and columnist, writing the popular “House Hunter” column. Officially, Buck was a colleague of mine for a number of years, including when I was editor of the Tribune’s Tempo section and one of its staff writers.
Her fashion act has taken the country and the world by storm. She knows famous designers like Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, Karl Lagerfeld… the list is long. She developed a close relationship with the late photographer Viktor Skrebnesky.
Many accolades have come her way, including induction into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame. In the year “I love the people behind the clothes as much as I love the clothes,” she wrote on the show’s 1991 show, accepting the prestigious award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. I am creatively fascinated by learning why designers – artists – do what they do. Writing about people, their styles, even fashion is keeping the pulse of the times. And that’s encouraging.”
As a Tempo writer, she once profiled photographer Mark Houser. This is how she began her story about him: “Marc Hauser was the first to admit that he was a great photographer and a great communicator.” In fact, it’s the best in town doing two. Just ask him,” he said.
She and her family live on the north side of town.
Son Gregg, senior manager of Tyson Foods, recalls, “Despite being involved in fashion for a long time, the clothes were not an obsession. She definitely had her own style, but her favorite story, people. And what was her interpretation for the working mother? Coming home early from fabulous parties in Paris after spring collections and helping her children with homework on transatlantic phone calls.
Back in 2010 He retired in 2004, already overwhelmed by health problems that left her behind until the end. “My brother and I don’t think of that primarily as a negative, but it’s an integral part of her story of strength and resilience and defying the odds,” said daughter Michelle, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. University. “Over the years, I’ve said what I thought was my final ‘goodbye’ many times, but she bravely carried on.”
For many years she lived in The Clare, a retirement community a few blocks from Northwestern Hospital. “She’s been my rock and my inspiration, and she was a fighter until the end,” Michelle said. Her favorite quote was from author Dawna Markova. It was this: ‘I will not die without life. I don’t live in fear of falling or burning. I choose to live my days, to let my life open up to me… to make it more accessible… I choose to live.”
In addition to her children, Buck is survived by her daughter Kim and sons Geoff and Alison; son-in-law Carlos A. Cornier and five nieces and nephews. A celebration of life is being prepared.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
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