Dr. Thomas Elton Weaks, Jr.

Thomas Elton Weaks, Jr., of Clarksville, Tennessee, passed away on Saturday, June 15, 2024, at the age of 89. He was born on September 12, 1934, to the late Thomas Elton Weaks, Sr., and Mary Lucy Bayer Weaks, of Cumberland City, Tennessee. He was also preceded by two of his sisters, Emily Weaks Green (Jobe) and Helen Weaks Reed (H.B.). 

Tom was born and raised in Cumberland City, Tennessee. He attended the W.T. Thomas School in Cumberland City and graduated from Clarksville High School. He received his B.S. degree from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, his M.A. from George Peabody at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. 

In his first year teaching at Adams Junior High School in Tampa, he met the love of his life, Elizabeth Ann Wright. She was teaching English and he taught Biology. They often shared with their daughters the story of going to see the movie South Pacific on their first date. They were married on December 21, 1959, in Plant City, Florida, Elizabeth’s hometown. Tom and Elizabeth would have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in December 2024. 

Tom taught biology at Adams and at Chamberlain High School in Tampa and at Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida, before moving his family to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he completed his doctorate and then on to West Virginia where he was Professor of Biological Sciences at Marshall University in Huntington for 29 years. He retired in 2000 and relocated with his wife Elizabeth to the family farm in Cumberland City. 

His greatest joys were being with his family and spending time outside. Growing up in a family of four kids as the only boy, he understood the importance of family connections and of compromise and compassion. He could start up a conversation with most anyone, but his favorite topics were gardening and the weather and how it impacted growing crops. For many years he was passionate about being a part of planning for family reunions for the Weaks and the Bayer families, and he was determined to record family history by researching family ancestry and writing down stories he heard from his parents and grandparents. 

Tom was a devoted father to his two girls, Becky Weaks Brandvik and Mary Weaks-Baxter, and grandfather to Andy Baxter. Tom was the father that people wish for–attentive, giving, supportive, there when you need him, and the one to call on when you need advice, especially on gardening or a house project. He made sure that his kids and grandchild received educations that helped them succeed and thrive in the world. He was a role model who helped his daughters see that they could achieve whatever they dreamed of achieving. Tom helped his grandson Andy make connections for a research project on the Wells Creek Impact Crater in Cumberland City for Andy’s own scientific research for his geology degree. 

Tom had an adventurous spirit to him. In the 1960s, he attended science institutes in the summers that took him and his family to Birmingham, AL (during the tumultuous summer of 1963), to Detroit, and to Providence, Rhode Island. After they moved to West Virginia, he took his family on camping trips into the mountains, including remote areas where the landscapes were pristine and high above the elevations where tourists usually visited. For a family trip in the 1970s, he drove his family in their Chevy Impala on a tour of the west, stopping to camp and sightsee from the Badlands in South Dakota and the geysers in Yellowstone to Los Angeles and the Grand Canyon. 

As a trained botanist, Tom was a teacher and a researcher, focusing on the study of lichens, mosses, and algae. He worked on research projects ranging from analysis of the plant life in the Ohio River to a multi-year field project collecting plant specimens in the New River Gorge that ultimately helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. He shared his love for the outdoors and his passion for the biological sciences with numerous groups of students that he took on field expeditions to the West Virginia mountains and to Florida to study marine life.

Tom was an avid gardener who was passionate about tending his vegetable crops, fruit trees, and blueberries and cultivated blackberries, and for a time he was a beekeeper, as his mother had been before him. He and Elizabeth would can and freeze their produce each year so that homegrown foods were always on hand. He also shared much of their produce with friends and neighbors to keep them well stocked as well. An avid hunter, he would talk about making a stew mix that included the verison he had harvested. 

Church was an important part of Tom’s life and he instilled the importance of being a part of a church community to his children. He was a life-long Methodist. In Huntington, he and his family were members of Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church and in Clarksville, Madison Street United Methodist. Elizabeth and Tom were especially close to friends they made through their church Sunday School classes. When they lived in Huntington, they were part of a Sunday School class that often took group trips to places like the mountains in West Virginia.

Tom is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Wright Weaks, and his two daughters, Rebecca Weaks Brandvik and Mary Weaks-Baxter, his two sons-in-law, Neal Brandvik and Brent Baxter, and his grandson, Andrew Baxter. He is survived by one sister, Elnor Weaks McMahan Corgan, and cousin William Bayer. He was like a second father to his nephews, John Thornton McMahan (Jennifer) and Whitnell Weaks McMahan (Julie), who also survive him. He also had three very special dogs in his life: Penny, Gus the 1st, and Gus the 2nd. 

The celebration of life for Tom will be a private family service. Memorials can be sent to Madison Street United Methodist Church, Clarksville, TN. 

Please visit Thomas' online guestbook at www.sykesfuneralhome.com and share a memory with the family.