Father Norman DuKette

Father Norman DuKette was born Anthony Norman Duckett. The midwife recorded his birth as occuring on November 7, 1890 and at 2175 9 St NW, Washington D.C. He celebrated his birthday on November 7 until he was in his 30s when he moved the celebration to November 11th, the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and took the name DuKette.

he Ducketts were members of Washington's Black catholic church: St. Augustine's. St. Augustine's had been established in 1858, and met in the basement of St Paul's church. In 1866 they built a small chapel on 15th above L Street

After a famous fundraising drive, the wood chapel was replaced by a large brick structure now known as "the Old Church." The Old Church was dedicated on June 11, 1876. Norman Duckett was likely to have been baptized at the Old Church and served as an altar boy there. This location is very close to the center of Washington DC, just three short blocks north of the White House, and it became very valuable. The diocese sold it to the Washignton Post in 1946.

The Post replaced Old St Augsustine's with the prominent mid-century newspaper and press building where Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein famously broke the Watergate story. The church moved services seven blocks north to the basement auditorium of their school at 15th and S streets.

St. Paul's building another three blocks north at 15th and V Streets. Both congregations continue to meet there under the name "St. Augustine's." In 2008 they held a successful fund-rasing drive to keep their school open and to bring it under parish management.

In 2013 the Washington Post sold the press building at the site of Old St. Augustine's to developer Carr Properties for $159 million. It is now the site of Midtown Center, a glass-front commercial office building that boasts "a double height fitness center with ultramodern cardio and weight lifting equipment, Peloton bikes, and a yoga room, a 1,300 square foot bike room, a penthouse conference center, and an amenitized rooftop terrace with views of downtown Washington, D.C. and the Washington Monument."

Dukette's parents, John Henry Frank Duckett (c.1843-1903) and Letitia T. Greenleaf Duckett (c.1848-1928), were born in Prince George’s County, Maryland.<br><br> On April 2, 1864, Dukette's father, John Henry Frank Duckett (who often went by "Frank") enlisted in the 23rd regiment of the United States Colored Infantry in Washington DC. He declared himself to be 20 years old and signed his enlistment papers with an “x”. Duckett was immediately sent into battle in Virginia as part of the 3rd division 9 corps. His was the first African-American regiment to fight in organized combat, engaging in a skirmish on May 15, 1864 at the intersection of the Catharpin and Old Plank Roads. His unit fought at St. Petersburg, Richmond, the Crater, and Appomattox, and was present at General Lee’s surrender. 

John Duckett sustained an injury to his right arm in the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, Virginia on July 30, 1864 and was sent to Summit House General Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was returned to duty Nov 23, 1964, transferred from Company G to Company B in January 1865, and sent to Brazos Santiago, Tex

In 1869 John Duckett and Letitia Greenleaf married in Prince George’s County, Maryland. They lived in nearby Nottingham (north of Baltimore) and moved to Washington D.C. in the early 1870s along with other family members. In 1879 they were living on 12th street between Q and R streets and by the 1880 and 1900 censuses they owned a wooden frame house at 2265 9th Street NW where they lived with three of their children and two of Franks's adult sisters. Letitia’s brother Tighlmann Greenleaf and his family lived next door. This house, just outside the city boundary, was where Norman DuKette spent the first 11 years of his life. The house had a small yard, a backyard privy, and shared one water hydrant with several other modest houses along a dirt road at the outskirts of the city limits.</p><p> John H.F. Duckett appears in the Washington, DC directory as a laborer who had not been taught to read or write, but the children attended Garnet School on 10th street and U Avenue, NW, and the family were active members of the newly built Catholic church for African-American’s: St Augustine’s.

Like the Ducketts, many Black Americans moved to Washington DC after emanciation and lived in alley housing and on the outskirts of the city.

John H.F. Duckett died on June 15th, 1903 when Norman was 12 years old. He is buried as a veteran in section 23 of Arlington National Cemetery.

 Many stories of Father DuKette refer to his having been one of 26 children, 16 boys and 8 girls, 8 of them having arrived as twins (including himself). Of those twins, only one pair, Alberta and Sylvester, born in 1887, appears to have survived. Infant mortality among the poorer classes in the District of Columbia was as high as fifty percent, and the existing records indicate that most of those 26 died at birth, as infants, or as children. After the death of her husband, Letitia Duckett was forced to move from the 9th St. house her family had owned before her widowhood. 

She lived in a series of tenements and alley houses, usually with one or more of her children. In the 1910 census, Letitia reports having 9 surviving children, 6 of whom were living with her: John H (38), Alberta (23), Edward S[ylvester] (21), Andrew N[orman] (19), Charles A (16), and Helen E (11). Letitia was working as a laundress and her eldest as a bricklayer. Letitia reported that she could not read or write, but that all of her children could. 

In the late-1920s Father DuKette brought his mother to Detroit, where she died in 1928. The Chicago Defender reported that DuKette sang a solemn requiem high mass and funeral for her at St. Benedict the Moor which was attended by over fifty of his fellow Detroit priests and remembered by his parishioners. Letitia Greenleaf Duckett is buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Detroit.

Ten years later DuKette would bring his youngest sister, Helen, also a widow, to Flint to spend the last year of her life in his care. She died at 1718 Clifford Street in 1940 at the age of 42, and is buried at New Calvary Cemetery.

By the time Dukette moved to Flint in 1929 at the age of 39, six of his 25 siblings were still living: John H. in New York; Joseph in Chicago; George and Alberta in Philadelphia; and Charles and Helen in Washington. His brother Sylvester had died serving in WW1 as part of the 369th infantry regiment 93 div of the US Army, the famous "Harlem Hellfighters." Sylvester died in battle October 1, 1918 possibly in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and was buried (along with thousands of others) in Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery north of Paris. He was moved to Arlington in 1921. Only Charles Duckett was still living at the time of Norman's death.