James Emmett Duffy Jr.

James E. Duffy Jr. of Arlington, Virginia, departed this world peacefully on June 25, 2025, shortly after his 92nd birthday and 66 years after he married the love of his life, Jane Henkel Duffy, who survives him. He was surrounded in the last days, and regularly throughout the years before, by the close family that they raised together. In addition to Jane, he is survived by sons Emmett and partner Elizabeth Canuel, Timothy and partner E.K. Hong, Matthew and partner Christie Rose, daughters Ann and partner John Grgurich, Elizabeth and partner Brian Gullette, and Sarah and partner Matthew Brown, and grandchildren Conor Duffy and partner Lori Horning, Lincoln Gullette, Rebecca-Jane Gullette, Jack Grgurich, and Luna Duffy. His beloved older sister and only sibling, Mary Ann Duffy Kwinn, of Playa del Rey, California, preceded him by two years and we hope they are again laughing and needling each other as they loved to do in this life.

Jim and Jane grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, met on a date arranged by friends, and hit it off. They maintained a correspondence while Jane went away to Webster college in St. Louis and Jim stayed in Cincinnati to attend Xavier University. They married in 1959 and moved to Arlington, where Jim worked for several federal agencies over the years, the high point in his telling being the short-lived Office of Economic Opportunity, which worked to extend civil rights to marginalized Americans during the Johnson administration. Jim was an avid singer. In the early years he was a member of the Arlington Metropolitan Chorus, a cantor at St. Thomas More Catholic Church, and host with Jane of home sing-alongs with friends. For many years he led the folk group at St. Thomas More and then St. Ann's Churches and also sang to entertain residents of nursing homes—even when he grew older than them. He studied history in college and maintained a keen interest in it throughout his life, especially of World War II, which unfolded during the formative years of his childhood. He eagerly expounded on arcane details of virtually any military aircraft that left the ground during the war years. Sources of this knowledge occupied a startlingly large proportion of the bookshelves that eventually lined most walls in the house they built in 1970, which was HQ for family gatherings for 52 years until he and Jane moved into assisted living together. He will be sorely missed by his many loved ones and friends.

Visitation will be at Murphy Funeral Home in Arlington, 6-8 pm, Tuesday, July 1. Funeral mass will be celebrated at St. Ann Catholic Church in Arlington, 10:30 am, Wednesday, July 2. He will be interred at Columbia Garden Cemetery in Arlington.