Rev. Duncan J. Smith, 103, passed away on March 11, 2014, at The Heartford House in Owensboro, Ky. He was born on July 1, 1910 in Nuckols, Ky., to Alexander Campbell Smith and Elizabeth Lewis Smith.
Duncan grew up in Ohio County, Ky. He graduated from Hartford High School in Hartford, Ky. After high school he attended Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green and Southern Seminary’s Boyce Bible School in Louisville, Ky.
Duncan began preaching at age 18 and has been a Baptist minister for more than 80 years. Many of his pastorates were in Ohio County. Licensed to preach by Woodwards Valley Baptist Church in Livermore on Sept. 2, 1932, he was ordained by Hartford Baptist Church in 1941. For the first five years of his ministry, he preached in the Johnson Schoolhouse and was paid a gallon of sorghum.
Among the many Baptist congregations that he has served in Ohio County are West Providence, Walton’s Creek, Narrows, Bells Run, Woodwards Valley, Rockport Baptist and Second Baptist Hartford. He has also served at Liberty and McGrady Creek in Grayson County, Bandana in Ballard County, New Harmony in Muhlenburg County, Nortonville in Hopkins County, and Salem in Christian County, and he did Eastern Kentucky Mountain Missions work in Floyd County.
Rev. Smith was asked to return a second time as pastor by three churches: Salem Baptist in Pembroke, Pleasant Grove Baptist in Owensboro, and Bandana Baptist. He even served three times at West Providence Baptist Church in Centertown.
On the state convention level, Rev. Smith played an important role on a committee that secured the land for what later would become Jonathan Creek Baptist Assembly, while he was pastor at Bandana. He then served as the first pastor for a Girls in Action camp. When he was 78 years old he went on a revival mission trip to Kenya where he walked a ten mile round trip each day to preach.
He loved to garden and did so until he was 101 years old and had many memories of farming as a very young man.
Duncan is survived by his children: Beth and her husband Rev. Kimbrough Simmons, Thomas Smith, Dana and her husband Larry Edmonson, Marjorie and her husband Maurice Thompson, Ima Sue and her husband Bill Danks, Joe and his wife Ada Dorris, 13 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren, several nieces one nephew, and many friends.
Duncan was preceded in death by first wife, Dorothy Roach Smith; his second wife, Jamie Whitson Dorris Smith; two children, Carroll Lewis Smith and James Kennedy Smith, five brothers and one sister.
A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16, at Masonville Baptist Church, 6601 U.S. Highway 231 in Utica, Ky. A visitation will be held at Masonville Baptist Church on Saturday from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. until the time of service. A private burial will follow at Oakwood Cemetery in Hartford, Ky. William L. Danks Funeral Home in Beaver Dam is in charge of arrangements.
Expressions of sympathy may take the form of donations to Masonville Baptist Church, 6601 US Highway 231, Utica, Ky., or Hospice of Western Kentucky, 3419 Wathens Crossing, Owensboro, Ky. 42301.
Online messages of condolence may be made at www.danksfuneralhome.com.