Duncan, Alzona John
(born: 1871 - died: 1950)Alzona J. Duncan was one of the very few African American pharmacists in Kentucky in the early 1900s. He was born in Bowling Green, KY, in 1871. In 1900, he was managing a drug store in Columbus, OH, while a boarder at a home on N. Champion Avenue, according to the U.S. Census.
Alzona was the husband of Julia Jones Duncan (1884-1953), who was born in Ohio. In 1910. The family of six was living in Covington, KY, on W. Tenth Street; Alzona was the owner of a drug store.
By 1916, the Duncan family was living in Louisville, KY, where their youngest daughter, Lucie L. Duncan, was born on August 8, according to the Kentucky Birth Index [see the Lucie Lennora Duncan Beverly entry in The Black Women in the Middle West Project, by D. C. Hine, et al.]. The family lived in the Little Africa section of Louisville, where Alzona owned and operated a drugstore. He was also recognized as mayor of the community and was president of the Parkland Improvement Club.
Alzona Duncan is listed in the 1939 and 1940 volumes of Caron's Louisville City Directory as living at 3621 Virginia Avenue and working as a pharmacist at Central Drug Company. The company had been established in 1932 by African Americans Frank L. Moorman and Dr. J. C. McDonald. [More information on Frank L. Moorman is available at the University of Louisville Library.]
For more on Alzona J. Duncan in Little Africa, see J. C. Pillow, "Parkland: Homestead was rise of Little Africa" in the Courier Journal newspaper, published in 1989.