Dean Allen Duncan was born on Nov. 18, 1941, in Bone Lake, Wisconsin. During high school, he worked at the Stokely Van Camp plant in Frederic. Dean graduated from Frederic High School and was the class valedictorian. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Superior with high honors. After college, Dean worked as a chemist for Cargill in Minneapolis and lived in Mound, Minnesota. Dean traveled to California several times for Cargill. He focused on many ways to use soybeans. Dean played in several golf leagues and bowling leagues with other Cargill employees.
Dean loved to ride bicycles and play the stock market. He was a fan of NASCAR and he never missed a Sunday race on television. Dean liked to watch bowling on television and would calculate the bowlers’ percentages by hand (before the internet arrived).
Dean was very generous with his time and money. Dean never married, but he liked traveling to Somerset to watch exotic dancers.
After retiring from Cargill, Dean moved to Siren, Wisconsin, and managed Jed’s Laker Lounge. Dean officially retired around the age of 76 and moved to the house he grew up in outside of Frederic. The farm has three houses on it, and it is affectionately called Duncanville. Dean loved playing cards with his brothers and sisters. He loved cats and enjoyed sitting at home and watching his nieces and nephews coming and going. Dean loved mowing lawns, taping movies to watch in his retirement, collecting stamps, coins and records, and reading magazines.
Dean was preceded in death by his parents, Lyman and Lola Duncan; brothers, Wesley, Boyd and Mack Duncan; sister, Jean Fenton; brothers-in-law, Clifford Fenton and Edward Schmidt; and sisters-in-law, Cecilia (Koos) Duncan and Delores (Domagala) Duncan.
He is survived by his sister, Jo Ann Schmidt of Luck, Wisconsin; sister-in-law, Eleanor (Domagala) Duncan of Frederic; nephews, James and Kevin (Joanie) Duncan, and Jack; nieces, Charlene (Randy) Stocker and Darlene (Fenton) Peterson; and many great and great-great nieces and nephews.
Dean lived his life to the fullest and died a happy man because he was able to die peacefully at home.
