Pat Buckley, 80, charity fund-raiser

STAMFORD, Conn. -- Pat Buckley, a prominent charity fund-raiser in New York and the wife of writer William F. Buckley Jr., has died. She was 80.

She died Sunday of an infection following surgery, National Review publisher Jack Fowler told the Associated Press. Her husband founded the magazine.

Beneficiaries of Pat Buckley's fund-raising included the Metropolitan Museum, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. She also raised money for AIDS causes and Vietnam veterans. "She really was an incredibly powerful and colorful woman," Fowler said. "She really was a dominating personality."

Patricia Alden Austin Taylor was born in Vancouver. She met her future husband while a student at Vassar College. He was her roommate's brother. The young couple soon settled in Hamden while he wrote his first book, "God and Man at Yale."