Portland, Ore. — Wilford Frank Weeks, commonly known as Willy, died on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, at his residence in Portland. He was born Jan. 8, 1929, and lived with his parents and brother, Frank, Caroline and Richard Weeks, until 1952 at the family home in Champaign, Ill. He graduated from Champaign High School in 1947; received his BS and MS degrees in geology in 1951 and 1953 (Highest Honors, Bronze Tablet, Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of Illinois; and his Ph.D. in geochemistry in 1956 from the University of Chicago. From 1955 to 1957 he was a research and development officer in the U.S. Air Force ultimately reaching the rank of Captain. It was during this period that he became interested in the polar regions and particularly in the properties and behavior of ice in the sea. On his discharge from the service in 1957 he taught geology at Washington University in St. Louis for five years. In 1962, deciding that he was more interested in ice than in rocks, he joined the Snow and Ice Branch of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H. During this period he also served as an Adjunct Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College. In 1986 he moved to Fairbanks, Alaska serving as the Chief Scientist at the Alaskan Synthetic Aperture Radar Facility and Professor of Geophysics. On his retirement in 1996 he moved to Portland. Willy was the recipient of numerous honors including election to the National Academy of Engineering (1979); the U.S. Army R&D Achievement Award (1967, 1981); Seligman Crystal of the International Glaciological Society (1989); Fellowship in the American Geophysical Union (1989); Honorary Membership to the American Polar Society (1997); Usibelli Prize for Research at the University of Alaska (1996) and the Distinguished Alumni Award of the Department of Geology of the University of Illinois (2003). He is the author of 300 papers in the technical literature and one book concerning the polar regions in general and sea ice in particular.
Willy was also an accomplished musician who transitioned from violin to contrabass while in junior high school. He added to his musical perspective by learning the blues while playing with a variety of combos and dance bands that operated out of the Champaign-Urbana area during 1942-1952. He frequently commented that this was a wonderful experience for a kid in that it paid far better than detasseling corn, you learned all sorts of new words and met some very interesting ladies. He continued to study bass while at the University of Illinois and was a bassist in the symphony having the good fortune to play the famous concerts conducted by Stravinsky and Copeland. While living in the Upper Valley he played with both the Dartmouth Symphony and the Hanover Chamber Orchestra. He continued his musical activities through out his career playing with several orchestras in the Portland area up until the time of his death.
He is preceded in death by his parents, Frank and Caroline and his brother Richard. He is survived by his children by his first wife, Beverly Smith; Ellen Weeks Saltzman of Clemson, S.C. and Paul Weeks of Charlotte, N.C. and by his wife of over 30 years, Marilyn McDonald.
A party in his memory was held in Portland prior to his death.
