[1] Buffum attended Long Beach High School, and was described as a competitive student for her gender, especially against the opposite sex.

[4] At a school dance, she met fellow student Norman Chandler, the eldest son of the family that had published the Los Angeles Times since 1883.

[citation needed] As the wife of the publisher of the city's leading newspaper, Chandler became active in Los Angeles cultural circles.

[citation needed] Chandler served as a regent and chairwoman of the Building Committee of the University of California from 1954 to 1968, during its period of most rapid growth, when the system grew from five to nine campuses.

[citation needed] Chandler later led a nine-year effort to build a performing arts center for the city of Los Angeles.

In 1955, she raised $400,000 at a benefit concert at the Ambassador Hotel featuring Dinah Shore, Danny Kaye and Jack Benny.

Attorney Paul Ziffren remarked that "before the Music Center, Jews were not a part of the social life of this community."

[8] Chandler was featured on the cover of the December 18, 1964, issue of Time magazine, which praised her fundraising efforts as "perhaps the most impressive display of virtuoso money-raising and civic citizenship in the history of U.S.