Gordon David Weekly, age 68, died peacefully and surrounded by loving family on February 1st, 2018, about 18 months after his initial prostate cancer diagnosis.
Gordon was born on February 17, 1949, in Tulsa, Oklahoma to George and Tai Weekly and grew up in Fort Walton Beach, Florida as the eldest of five children. In his teenage years, Gordon became an Eagle Scout and went to Choctawhatchee High School. After graduating, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to get his Bachelor & Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Gordon would take a break from classes on weekends by helping conduct the choir at a nearby church, where he became close friends with one of the singers, Marian Forsyth. Gordon and Marian married in the church where they first met and made music together. Their love was deep, their shared faith abiding, and their marriage a very happy one. In 2012, just days before Marian died from lung cancer, they celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary.
Gordon loved solving problems and was well-suited to his successful career as a software engineer. He spent 25 years at GenRad, and never retired from the field. He was much beloved by his coworkers and carpool commuter mates at MathWorks, where he worked right till the end of his life. A lifelong aviation enthusiast and experienced recreational pilot, he enjoyed contra-dancing, playing piano, the symphony, theater, and taking regular trips to the Berkshires to hike, swim, sail, and canoe. Gordon wished his ashes to be scattered in the same place as Marian’s: a mountain lake in Connecticut where they used to swim together.
Gordon was known for his kindness, cheerful and eager disposition, sharp mind, remarkable facility with mathematics (paired with hilariously bad spelling), playfulness, and sense of adventure. He deeply loved people -- especially children -- and God. In the last year of his life, he travelled to Fiji and New Zealand with son David, attended his 50-year high school reunion in Florida, and took his ten-year old granddaughter, Abi, on a special trip to London.
Gordon is survived by his three adult children and their spouses: Rebecca Koering (and husband Jason), Christopher (and wife Shawna), and David (and wife Rebecca), along with seven grandchildren: Abigail, Harper, Samuel, Elizabeth, Matthew, Maxwell, and Cyrus. He is also survived by his sister Brenda, brothers Roger and Peter, and their families.
Family and friends are invited to a service to grieve, honor and celebrate Gordon's life on what would have been his 69th birthday: Saturday, February 17th, at noon. A lunch reception will follow. The service and reception will be held at Christ Revolution Church (fka St Paul Evangelical), 451 Lowell St, Lexington MA 02420.
In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate charitable donations in his memory to the Rare Cancer Research Foundation (
https://rarecancer.org), or one of the other causes he personally supported in life, such as CARE (
https://www.care.org) or Amnnesty International (
https://amnesty.org).
