James B. Duvall

1917 - 2022

Duvall

James B. Duvall

James Beckett Duvall, age 105, passed away on October 24, 2022 in Springfield, Virginia.

Jim was the son of James B. Duvall and Bessie E. Beckett Duvall. He was born in McGregor, Iowa on May 29, 1917.

A veteran of WWII, Jim was responsible as an Army Signal Corps Inspector and Senior Signal Corps Inspector for five different plants that built radar equipment for Army Air Corps bomber aircraft in the Chicago, Illinois area during the war years. As an electrical engineering student at South Dakota State and a graduate of Tri-State University in Angola, Indiana, Jim had previously worked in the engineering laboratory of a defense plant building early radar equipment prior to joining the Army Signal Corps. After the war was over, Jim started working as an engineer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Rural Electrification Administration. He spent thirteen years as an REA field engineer where he managed projects to establish electric and then phone service in six Midwest states. Jim and his family transferred to the Washington, D.C. area in 1960. As the REA Chief Engineer for the southwest and western regions, Jim continued to thrive on the administration's role in serving rural America. Jim retired in 1976 from the Department of Agriculture after thirty-five years of government service.

Jim loved the outdoors and excelled in hunting pheasants, ducks and geese during his youth and early years of his family life. He received the first ham radio license as a youth in his hometown of McIntosh, S.D. As a member of a railroading family, he and his sister, Phyllis, graduated from high school in McIntosh. Jim met Betty Irene Fornia in Sioux City, Iowa. They were married on April 2nd of 1944. They resided in Sioux City, Arlington, Va. and Aberdeen, S.D. prior to moving to Alexandria, Va. in 1960. They were married for 78 years up to the point of Jim's passing. On Jim's 100th birthday, he received an executive proclamation from the Office of the Governor of South Dakota to honor a man and native son that lived an exemplary life for all to emulate.

Jim is survived by his wife, Betty and their three children, a son Don and his wife Jane of The Woodlands, TX., a daughter Barbara Hedberg and her husband, David of Warrenton, Va. and a son Ron and his wife, Vicky of Durango, CO. and four grandchildren, Caroline Bruce & Thomas Duvall and Kristin and Nick Hedberg and five great grandchildren: Mary-Claire, Selah, Meera, Perry, and Emma.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, November 2 in the chapel at the Greenspring retirement community in Springfield, Va.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Aldersgate United Methodist Church on Fort Hunt Road in Alexandria where Jim and Betty attended services for sixty years or Erickson Senior Living, Springfield, Va.