Deceased December 26, 2011
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In Memory
Will Weeks died of pneumonia on Dec. 26, 2011, at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass. An outstanding student, Will was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma X and received his M.D. from Cornell.
He served as a general medical practitioner in the Amherst area for more than 50 years. Will was our family physician during the 17 years we lived in Amherst, and I credit him with lifesaving care of my wife, Polly, and of my number three daughter, Laura, when they had medical emergencies.
Will was a gentle man of great faith and great human kindness and sympathy. After medical school and an internship, he was a conscientious objector, working with Native Americans in North Dakota, Alaska and on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea.
The objection to armed conflict did not deter his zeal for hunting and fishing and telling stories about the same. He and I spent many hours flat down in farm fields waiting to ambush geese, or hiding in a duck blind in the snow, calling in the mallards or directing one of his sometimes recalcitrant dogs to point to, or flush, the birds we wanted for dinner. Turkeys, geese, ducks and doves, as well as all manner of fish, were his targets. He was a good wing shot and a skilled fly fisherman.
Will also was a skilled cultivator of flowers and vegetables, a good cook, a woodworker and a photographer.
Will served as an Amherst town meeting member and as treasurer of Interfaith Housing, which developed low income housing in Amherst. From the time I knew him in college, he was admired for his deep Christian faith.
Will was a fine man, and I shall miss him.
Will’s immediate survivors are his wife, Barbara, a Smith College graduate, and, by his previous marriage, son Daniel, daughter Virginia and grandson Patrick.
Charles R. Longsworth ’51