Mollie Leona Buckle was born June 11, 1890 in Coos County, Oregon. She was the oldest of six children born to Nelson Duzan Jones and Lillious Charlotte Stillwell. Her father Nelson Duzan Jones had two children, Emma and Johnny, from a previous marriage.

Mollie grew up living in Coos County and Douglas County, as her family moved back and forth several times. When she was about 16 years old her uncle Ed Stillwell introduced her to Thomas Charles Buckle, a young man he had recently brought to Oregon from San Francisco where they had worked together. By the next year, when Mollie was barely 17 years old, she married Mr. Buckle. They were married for almost 38 years until his death in 1945.

Mollie and Tom lived in Prosper, Oregon, where Tom worked for a lumber mill. All of their children were born while they lived at Prosper except the youngest son Harvey. In 1929 Tom and Millie Leona moved to Melrose, Oregon, where Tom engaged in the fuel business, supplying firewood to the businesses in town. Son Harvey was born while they lived at Melrose. In 1937 Tom and Mollie moved their family to Lookingglass, Oregon, into the house which all the grandchildren today remember as "Grandma Buckle's house." That house is still in the Buckle family today. Tom continued in his firewood business, with all the children helping with the family business as they grew up. Tom passed away in 1945, at the age of 68. Mollie Leona lived another 41 years in her home in Lookingglass, as well as in a home her son Harvey built for the two of them, with the help of some of the older siblings and spouses. After Harvey married Mollie often lived with or near several of her children, especially son Ivan and his gem of a wife Polly, who took care of "Mother Buckle" in the last years of her life.

Grandma Buckle loved to entertain her children with stories of her early childhood. Her grandfather and family came across the plains in 1852 and settled in Douglas County, one of the first settlers in the Roseburg area. Many articles about her family can be found in the Douglas County Museum. At the time of her death, there were 168 direct descendants of Mollie and Thomas C. Buckle.