Frederick G. Tucker Jr.

Frederick G. Tucker, Jr., 93, of LaGrange, Ky. died Jan. 15 of covid after hospice care at Baptist East Hospital. A native of Louisville, Mr. Tucker spent years working on Democratic political campaigns, including being a member of the Kentucky delegation to the 1960 convention which nominated John F. Kennedy to be president. He also had been an advance man for Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential candidacy and had helped manage the successful run for Kentucky Lieutenant Governor of Wilson Wyatt, wartime mayor of Louisville.

He was the eldest son of Alice Johnson Tucker and the Rev. Fred Gentry Tucker, one–time Director of Home Missions for the Long Run Association of Baptists. Survivors include brothers William of Raleigh, NC, Ernest, of Ashland, KY, and sister Patricia Chatten, of Arlington VA, and 10 nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his brother Thomas and his companion of more than 40 years, Carolyn Kent.

Mr. Tucker attended Mars Hill College in North Carolina, graduated in political science from the University of Kentucky and attended Balliol College, Oxford University. While still a student at UK, he initiated long standing correspondence with former German Chancellor Franz Von Papen, who had been absolved by the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

As an international business consultant, he traveled the world, including lengthy residence in Western Europe, where he had served in the U.S. Army. Among other tasks, he arranged the liquidation of modern art holdings of a client, and later, negotiated legal sale of European machinery to South Africa, when U.S. trade was embargoed during Apartheid.

Interment will be in Cave Hill Cemetery alongside his parents, with remembrance ceremonies to be arranged by the family later this year.