Elizabeth Wright Weaks

Elizabeth was born in the strawberry community of Plant City, Florida, on July 1, 1935, in her mother and father’s home, just across the street from her uncle’s orange grove. She was proud of her Florida roots, especially her family connections to Plant City, which is known as the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World.

Elizabeth’s mother taught in the country at a strawberry school for children who did not attend the winter months because they picked strawberries. When she moved to a teaching job in Plant City, Elizabeth started attending elementary school in town. Several years later, the family moved to Ocala, Florida, where Elizabeth’s dad opened a feed and seed store. After graduating from high school, Elizabeth and her family moved back to Plant City.

After attending Wake Forest University in North Carolina, Elizabeth transferred to the University of Florida, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education and her teaching certificate. During her college years, she spent one summer vacation working at Yellowstone National Park in the laundry room for the lodge. She spoke often about taking the train out to Yellowstone and the fun she had working with friends at the park. After college, in the summer of 1956, she traveled six weeks in Europe and visited with her brother, Glenn, and his wife, Delia, who were then living in France.

After teaching a year in an elementary school in Plant City, she moved to nearby Tampa where she started a job at a junior high school. Arriving the first day for her new teaching job, she met a young man who eventually became her husband, Tom Weaks. They were married in Plant City on December 21, 1959. In the early years of their marriage, Elizabeth earned her master’s degree in education at the University of Florida.

After they married, Tom was transferred to teach at a local high school because the district did not want spouses to teach at the same school. Elizabeth and Tom’s two daughters, Mary and Becky, were both born in Tampa. The family lived there several years before moving to live in Cocoa, Florida, and then to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Tom worked on his PhD in Biology. Elizabeth taught high school English in Knoxville, financially supporting the family while Tom worked on his degree.

In 1971, the family moved to Huntington, West Virginia, where Tom was a professor at Marshall University. In Huntington, Elizabeth taught Language Arts at Cammack Junior High School and at Enslow Middle School. She was active in her church circle and United Methodist Women at Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church and completed the intensive, life-changing Disciple Bible Study class. Elizabeth and Tom were active members of their Sunday School class at Johnson Memorial and made life-long friends who visited often and traveled together after retirement. In their neighborhood, she was a member and leader of the Greenbrier Heights Garden Club. She had an interest in the arts and enjoyed taking textile courses, such as weaving, at Marshall. She was also a member of the Faculty Wives Club at Marshall, and she and Tom were part of a Gourmet Group of Marshall faculty and wives who met to socialize and try new dishes.

After retirement, in 2000, Elizabeth and Tom moved to their farm in southern Stewart County, Tennessee, and renovated the old farmhouse that Tom’s ancestors built pre-Civil War out of logs. They remodeled portions of the original house and added on a modern wing. They enjoyed the farm, producing a large garden and orchard, and bee hives. The pond was full of catfish and the creek was fun for their grandson Andy and their dog Gus.

Elizabeth was also active in the Country Woman’s Club and in activities at their church, Madison Street United Methodist. In retirement, they also enjoyed traveling to visit their daughters who were living in the Chicago area, to Florida, and on cruises and trips to overseas locations including to Hawaii, Alaska, Cape Horn, the Caribbean, and the British Isles.

In 2017, Elizabeth and Tom moved to Abby Lynn Circle in Clarksville, where they made many new friends. They enjoyed living in their condo, until health issues led to their move to Fieldstone Place, where Elizabeth lived for one year after Tom passed away.

Elizabeth passed away at 12:59 a.m. on July 1, 2025, just 59 minutes into her 90th birthday.

She was predeceased by her parents, Abner Glenn Wright, Sr., and Rubye Wright, her brother Abner Glenn Wright, Jr., and her husband, Thomas Elton Weaks, Jr. She is survived by her sisters-in-law Delia Wright and Elnor McMahan Corgan, her daughters, Mary Weaks-Baxter (Brent Baxter) and Becky Brandvik (Neal), and one grandson, Andrew Bae Baxter. She leaves behind many other treasured family members and friends.

A Celebration of Life will be held for Elizabeth on August 2, 2025 (Saturday) in the Chapel at Madison Street Methodist in Clarksville at 10 a.m. For additional information about arrangements, please email mweaks@aol.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations to Madison Street United Methodist Church, National Public Radio, or the Alzheimer's Association would be gratefully appreciated.

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