Mildred Nanette (Nancy) Durie Duncan, (96) passed away peacefully on December 22, 2023 in Willow Park.
Nancy was born on November 17, 1927 in Waco.
As a child Nancy survived the depression, a devastating home fire, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, red measles, and appendicitis — all before the age of 12. As an adolescent, she became a summer camp counselor for the Camp Fire Girls and barrel racer on her beloved horse, Flax. She graduated high school from Sacred Heart Academy at age 17 after only 11 years of education.
She was a rodeo queen, a Waco Longhorn Riding Club representative at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo, and was nominated as homecoming queen at Baylor. She was a member of Delta Alpha Phi, president of the Baylor Waco Club, president of the Boots ’n’ Saddles Club, and president of the Alpha Kappa Delta sociology club.
After graduating Baylor, she taught school, caught the chickenpox from one of her students, married a Baylor football player, honeymooned in Lampasas, and moved to Fort Worth. There her husband, Glenn, worked for A. Brandt Company, Inc. and they started a family.
Soon they had three wonderful children. When her daughter came down with the mumps, Nancy had a very close call with meningoencephalitis. Even with a house full of kids, she still survived.
She attended the graduations and weddings of all of her kids and grandkids, and countless baptisms, confirmations, sporting events, and other activities.
Nancy volunteered in the school cafeteria, as a room mother, den mother, helped with Brownies and Girl Scouts, was historian for the St. Rita’s Catholic Church garden club, and a faithful attendee of the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo since 1942.
She was a historian in her own right. Nancy was a member of the Troll Hjem chapter of the Norwegian Society of Texas and even took a few Norwegian lessons. She researched extensively her family genealogy as well as her husband’s, and was a contributor to the Mayborn Museum - Texas Collection - at Baylor in Waco. If you needed to know an important place, date or other information, her family always said, “just go ask Gram.”
She suffered with Celiac Sprue disease, without complaint, for more than a decade before receiving a diagnosis that probably saved her life at the time.
Nancy and her husband traveled together to the “old countries” Norway and Scotland. Later in life, they became “land and cattle barons” of sorts at their ranch in Gorman. Together they made the big move to Bluff Dale, and then two years after her husband died, she moved to Willow Park.
Nancy was an avid Rangers fan and lived long enough to finally see her beloved Rangers win the World Series. She was the undisputed Reigning Queen as the 42 Champ, and was pretty good in straight dominoes too. She won her last round of 42, defeating her grandson and great-grandson only a few days before her rapid health decline.
She was her husband’s caretaker. He had been given three months to live, but she kept him happily alive for another three years. They were married for fifty-seven years.
Nancy was a life-long Catholic, received a Catholic education through high schoo,l and raised her three kids in the church. She brought her husband to the faith in his later years.
She was a devoted wife and mother, grandmother, and great- grandmother, and through it all, she showed an overwhelmingly selfless and sacrificial love for her family. Family always came first to her. It was only fitting that she was surrounded by family at her passing. They will miss her dearly.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Roy and Edith (Kleypas) Durie; her husband, Glenn Wallace Duncan; and her sister, Mary Nell SoRelle.
Nancy leaves behind three children: Glenn Duncan (Suzanne), Nanette Nadeau, Susan Clemens (Bill); six grandchildren: Scott Duncan (Jennifer), Lindsey Flowers (Brandon), Philip Duncan (Monica), Cameron Kelman (Chip), Cole Thompson (Niki) and Brian Felker; fourteen great-grandchildren: Tanner Ward, Elliana, Evan, Adelaide, and Alexis Duncan, Coy and Charley Flowers, Jace, Juliette, Athan and Kai Duncan, Hadyn Felker and Tagg and Troop Thompson.
Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11:30 a.m. on January 3, 2024, at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Aledo. The family will receive friends at 10 a.m. before the ceremony. Burial will be at 2:30 p.m. at the DFW National Cemetery.
The Community News
December 29, 2023
