Exeter, NH – Carnes Weeks, Jr., son of Dr. Carnes Weeks of New York City and Margaret Shoemaker of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, was born in Manhattan in 1924, the oldest of four children, which included Bob, Nonie, and Margo. He grew up in the city, where he attended St. Bernard’s School. In the mid-30s the family moved to a farm in Woodbury, Connecticut. He attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, until he enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps in January, 1943. He trained as an aerial gunner in Marine B-25 bombers, south Pacific Theatre of War. His squadron was responsible for bombing by-passed Japanese held Islands, mostly Rabaul, New Britain. Corporal Weeks was awarded both the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. After his discharge in November 1945, Carnes Weeks attended Yale University and graduated in three years. He married Patricia Severn of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1949. He completed medical school at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, where sons John and Andrew were born. His youngest son, Nathan, was born in Hartford, CT, where Dr. Weeks completed two years general residency at Hartford Hospital. Dr. Weeks started his family practice of medicine in Amenia, NY, where he remained in practice for eighteen years, performing maternity, general medicine, assisting at major surgery, and house calls from his home office. In 1972, and for the next three years, he practiced at Vassar College; and he started the Emergency Department at Sharon Hospital where he was Director from 1975-1989.
Dr. Weeks initiated and served as Chairman of the Board of the Elizabeth McCall Foundation, a center for the treatment of alcohol and drug addictions, in Torrington, CT. He was honored by the building of the in-patient Carnes Weeks Center, a 20-bed facility.
His volunteer activities include serving as a civilian physician in a Vietnamese hospital in Phan Rang in 1967; starting the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Amenia, NY, the Eastern Duchess County Maternity Clinic, also in Amenia; and working at Americares, in Danbury, CT.
Dr. Weeks retired from the Emergency Department at Sharon Hospital in 1992 and did cruise ship medicine for several years after retiring. He moved to Sorrento, Maine, in 2002. He married Carmen Williams Jensen of Corea, Maine, in 2012 and lived in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Corea, Maine, until his death on November 29, 2015, in Exeter.
In addition to his deep commitment to medicine, Dr. Weeks had a life-long appreciation for the outdoors and he will be well remembered for organizing many family picnics, canoe trips, fishing expeditions, and deer hunting with the Weeks Gang at his cabin in Stanfordville, NY. He thoroughly enjoyed carriage driving with his wife Patricia until her death in 1989. He greatly enjoyed travel and planning adventures with friends. Some of his notable trips include taking the Trans-Siberian Railway from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg, fishing trips in Alaska, an African safari, two trips following in the steps of Lewis and Clark, and a trip with fellow veterans to visit WWII sites in the Pacific. He travelled this country often in his camper. His interest in ornithology led him to bird carving, and he spent many happy hours with fellow bird carvers at the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, ME. He enjoyed cooking and after retirement enrolled in a class at the Culinary Institute of America. He also loved a good story, could tell a good story, and most of all, loved to be around people.
He is survived by his sister Margo Valentine; his wife, Carmen; his sons and daughters-in-law Jack and Elizabeth, of Kingston, NY; Andy and Bonnie, of Exeter, NH; and Nate and Marion, of Yarmouthport, MA; his step-children Lee Holsberry, of St. Petersburg, FL; and Elizabeth and Bill Collins, of Orting, WA; his grandchildren Beth Weeks, Amy Weeks-Coffield, Kevin Weeks, and Kate Weeks; and step-grandchildren Lindsay and Emily Palmer, Melanie Taylor, A. J. Sidener, and Levi Collins.
Memorial services will be held in May in Duchess County, NY and in the summer in Sorrento, ME.
In lieu of flowers, he would be honored by a donation in his memory to the Elizabeth McCall Foundation, 58 High St., Torrington, CT 06790.
