Mary E. Weeks (maiden name: Crist) was born on March 2, 1834, in New York to Peter M. Crist and Lillian Hunter. Her father was a carpenter who owned $1,600 of real estate in 1850. She was baptized in a Presbyterian church on October 9, 1841. Her mother died in 1843, and her father remarried later that year. The family lived in New York until 1845, when they moved to Plainfield, Illinois.
She married William P. Weeks on May 24, 1856, and they had at least nine children: Wesley, born around 1857; Lilly, born around 1860; Carrie, born around 1864; Burr, born around 1866; Lee, born around 1868; George, born around 1870; Esther, born around 1872; David, born around 1874; and Cora, born around 1876. They lived in Lockport, Illinois, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1860, they owned $200 of personal property. They moved to Cedar, Iowa, in the 1860s, and by 1870, they owned $1,200 of real estate and $300 of personal property. By 1880, they were living in Center, Kansas. Her husband died in 1895, and by 1900, she was living in her son George’s household in Fairfield, Kansas. She died on June 6, 1909.