Graham Duncan,

WWII Veteran,

Poet, Professor

ONEONTA – Graham Duncan, 97, a published poet and 35-year SUNY Oneonta English professor who, with the 87th Infantry during World War II, witnessed Buchenwald’s liberation, passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, at Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, following a brief illness.
He was born in Poughkeepsie in 1922 and attended the New York State College for Teachers at Albany and Cornell University.
After completing his doctorate in English, he taught for three years at Russell Sage College and 35 years at SUNY Oneonta. He retired from full-time teaching in 1991.
As a member of the 87th Infantry Division in Europe he was in the Battle of the Bulge and was at the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
“Every Infant’s Blood: New and Selected Poems” was published in 2002. His poems also appeared in two chapbooks, “The Map Reader” (1987) and “Stone Circles” (1992), and in numerous well-known journals.
He is survived by his wife, Evelyn of Ithaca; his niece, Elizabeth (husband, Robert Fine) of Seabrook Island, S.C., and their three sons, (Philip, Robert and Logan); his nephew, Brian (wife, Margaret), of Kendall Park, N.J.; his cousin, Rita Gritman of Norridgewock, Maine and her daughters, (Wanda, Donna and Alinda); as well as other relatives and many friends.
He was predeceased by his parents, Herbert A. and Claire Arbuckle Duncan of Poughkeepsie; and his brother, Howard A. Duncan (and sister-in-law, Mary) of Hawthorne.