Portrait of Julia Duncan. IMB Photo

Julia Cruze Duncan, an International Mission Board missionary emeritus who shared the gospel in Kenya, died Feb. 11, 2024. She was 96.

Julia was born May 9, 1927, in Hamblen County, Tennessee, to Corum Dewey (C.D.) Cruze and Alice Bessie Cruze (Isenberg). She graduated from Morristown High School and received the Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.

She spent 30 years teaching second grade Sunday School at Central Baptist Church, Fountain City in Knoxville. She married her first husband, Jack Moore, in 1950. He passed away in 1981. She worked for Southern Railway and the University of Tennessee bursar’s office.

In 1983, she married Marshall Duncan.

In 1984, the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) appointed her as a missionary to Kenya. She joined her husband on the mission field in Kericho, Kenya. They served together in Kenya until 1990. The next 13 years of their marriage was spent serving churches in Alaska and Hawaii.

Julia is preceded in death by her brother, William Clifford (Billy) Cruze, her first husband, Jack Moore and her second husband, Marshall Duncan.

She is survived by her two brothers, Kevin and Lynn Cruze; her two stepsons, Marshall Alan Duncan (Andrea) and Kenneth Duncan (Cindy); four grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.

Memorial services were held at Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Jarnigan Cemetery in Morristown, Tennessee.

Read an obituary here.