John Joseph Weeks was born on August 9, 1897, in Pineville, North Carolina. During World War I, Weeks served with the 5th Company Coastal Artillery Corps of the North Carolina National Guard and later with Battery B of the 2nd Trench Mortar Battalion. He was deployed overseas from May 1918 to April 1919 and was honorably discharged in May 1919. After the war, he went on to become the president and treasurer of the Weeks-Williams DeVore Company in Charlotte, North Carolina. He died there on October 15, 1964.