John Eugene Buening Jr.

On September 21, 2026, our family said goodbye to John Eugene Buening Jr., better known to everyone as Jack. He passed away in Jacksonville, Florida, at the age of 89, leaving behind a lifetime of laughter, love, and memories that we will carry with us forever.

Jack was born on May 4, 1937, in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he spent part of his childhood before his family moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He spent his teenage years there before eventually settling in Jacksonville, the city he would call home for most of his adult life.

He leaves behind his loving wife of 62 years, Nancy G. Buening, with whom he shared a lifetime of love, adventures, and memories. He is also survived by his son, John Buening, and his wife, Nicole, and their children, Hannah, her husband Wayne,and Will; and his daughter, Sandra Buening Jeunesse, and her husband, Garrett, their daughter, Ashlee, her wife, Valerie, and their daughter, Bailey.

If you knew Jack, you knew he was funny. His sense of humor was truly one of a kind, there was simply no one else quite like him.

He was always up for going out to dinner, especially when it meant spending time with family. Of course, there was usually one unwritten rule when dining with Jack: order water. Anything else was an unnecessary expense! It’s memories like these that will make us laugh, even when our hearts are aching.

He and Nancy also shared a love of traveling, spending many wonderful years exploring the country in one of Jack’s beloved RVs. Together, they traveled across the United States, sometimes along side his brother Jim and his wife, Shari, other times with their RV group The Sun Wheelers and sometimes just the 2 of them.

As much as Jack enjoyed his adventures, nothing meant more than his family.

We were incredibly fortunate to live close to one another throughout our lives. Because of that, we didn’t just share the big occasions. We shared the little ones, too. The holidays, the birthdays, the dinners, the laughter, and all those wonderfully ordinary days that, looking back now, were anything but ordinary.

We didn’t have to wait for special occasions to be together. We were simply part of each other’s everyday lives. And what a gift that was.

Those are the memories we will hold closest. Not just the milestones, but the countless little moments that made up a lifetime of being a family.

There will be an empty place at our table now, a familiar voice we’ll wish we could hear just one more time, and too many moments when something reminds us of him. And we know there will be laughter, too, because remembering Jack without laughing would be impossible.

He was our husband, our dad, our grandfather, our great-grandfather, and so much more to everyone fortunate enough to know him.

He was one of a kind.

He was bigger than life.

And we will miss him. Every single day.