Buchen was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the son of State Senator Gustave W. Buchen.[1] In his youth, he contracted polio and thereafter walked with a cane. He graduated from Sheboygan High School in 1935 and attended the University of Michigan, where he met Gerald Ford. At Michigan, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He received his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1941.[2]
^Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 541.