Howard Jerry Weeks

Live Stream of Funeral Service Howard Jerry Weeks 4 August 1940 - 12 January 2022 Howard Jerry Weeks, country boy, family man, animal lover, succumbed to aspiration pneumonia on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at Mercy Jefferson Hospital in Festus, Missouri. He was 81 years old. Jerry was "country" when country wasn't always cool. He spent a large portion of his adult life working hard as a diesel mechanic in the mines and for a heavy equipment company outside St. Louis (with a brief break to become a licensed cosmetologist and instructor - yes, Jerry "did hair"), but the other portion of his adult life held a passion. No, it wasn't women. It was hunting and fishing. Jerry hunted pretty much any local mammal that had a legal season and fished in every available lake in Missouri and Mississippi. Although the outdoors was Jerry's passion, the women in his life were numerous. He particularly fancied smart women. He loved his late momma Clarice Weeks, who birthed and raised 11 children in the Mississippi Delta. Jerry loved his siblings and had endless tales of their adventures and how their relationships helped form who he became. In his youth, Jerry played high school football in Batesville, Mississippi, and felt drawn to join the Navy during the closing years of the Vietnam era. He is likely the only man who ever left Naval service without somehow getting a tattoo. He married his main squeeze Barb Miller, a hairdresser and entrepreneur, in St Louis, Missouri, on August 29, 1964. They had two girls: Melissa Weeks of Troutville, Virginia, and Kelly Weeks Moore of Hillsboro, Missouri. He taught them to fish & hunt, to select the right screwdriver, to ride horses, to love nature, to work hard & love hard, and to just be grateful in this life. In his later years, after he was widowed, Jerry reconnected with his high school sweetheart Linda Brewer Thompson. They re-ignited their "special friendship" (wink wink) and kept those fires burning until Jerry left this world. He also had a life-long love affair with all Hostess cakes (especially Snowballs, Ding Dongs, and Fruit Pies), biscuits & gravy, sunflower seeds, fried catfish, and waffles. He was always handy around a bar-b-que grill or a fish fryer. He excelled at fixing anything mechanical, building and remodeling homes, operating heavy equipment, standing on the porch shooting horses in the hind end with a bb gun when they cribbed on a fence, mowing and weed eating every inch of his home property, cutting & stacking wood, living within his means, reading about history, watching Fox News and talking back to the tv, outsmarting squirrels and turkeys and raccoons and deer and snapping turtles and bullfrogs and pheasants and.... He was incredibly talented at storytelling. He loved to relax in his recliner, especially when he had a lap full of his dog, his daughter's dogs, and the cat he inherited from his grand-daughter. His heart and joy resided in his family: his two girls, Melissa and Kelly, his two grandchildren Stacey Horn (28) of Hillsboro, Missouri, and Troy Moore (26) of Herculaneum, Missouri, and his new great-granddaughter Aliyah Horn (1) for whom he would turn the world upside down. Jerry is known as "the great baby whisperer," and that is an undeniable truth. Just ask any of his girls to show you a video. Jerry took fashion cues from no one in particular, although he was frequently accused of being Kenny Rogers' doppelganger. His signature everyday look was his own special style: a plain western shirt or t-shirt, a western-cut vest, and his Levi's jeans, all accented with a well-used baseball cap displaying various allegiances. He despised mean people, laziness, dishonesty, and coffee that is too strong. Those left to cherish Jerry's memory are his daughters, Melissa Weeks of Troutville, Virginia, and Kelly Weeks Moore (fiance Mark Hennemann) of Hillsboro, Missouri; grandchildren, Stacey Horn (husband Justin Horn) of Hillsboro, Missouri and Troy Moore of Herculaneum, Missouri; great-grandchild, Aliyah Horn of Hillsboro, Missouri; brothers and sisters: Virginia Jenkins of New Orleans; Barbara Dell Beard of Batesville; John Larry Weeks of Burlington; George "Bobby" Weeks of Grenada; David Weeks of Pope; and countless friends. Because of Jerry's love of his hometown and his family heritage, the Weeks family will first host a celebration of life service in Batesville, Mississippi. Viewing and visitation will be held at Wells Funeral Home, 340 Hwy 35 N, Batesville, MS 38606 on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, from 11-2 p.m., with funeral services beginning at 3 p.m. and concluding with interment at Forrest Memorial Park, 24017 Highway 6 East, Batesville, Mississippi. A subsequent memorial wake will take place in Festus, Missouri, at Mahn Funeral Home on Friday, January 21, 2022 from 4-7 p.m.