Kathleen Weeks Paintings On Display At Winston County Library

Kathleen Dempsey Weeks was born in the Highpoint community of Winston County in 1924. She was born in her grandparent’s house (John and Mary Margaret Garner – he was a railroad man). She remembers that Highpoint was a big community in those days - nine stores and a post office. It was also a railway hub and even had passenger railway cars. She recalls that Louisville native Sen. Giles Ward’s grandfather was the postmaster there for many, many years. Highpoint boasted a big brick school house serving first through twelfth grades. It was consolidated in the late 1930’s with

Louisville High School. Mrs. Weeks graduated from LHS. After high school she married Terrell Weeks, also from Louisville. He enlisted in the military and served in WWII. After the war the couple lived in Alaska the year before and the year after it became a state – 1958 - 1959. Then they moved to California, where Mrs. Weeks tried to take an art class. She had been painting since she was eight years old and remembers that her first painting was of an Indian chief with a feathered headdress. While in California, she enrolled in an art class and after the second class, her instructor said she needed to quit the class because she (the instructor) didn’t want to change her style of painting. She told her that her style was unique and special and that she should never change it. She is still painting to this day, at 93 years of age.

After her husband retired from the military, they moved to the Grand Canyon, where Kathleen and her husband became tour guides with the Fred Harvey Corporation for over 20 years, the only tour guide service at the Grand Canyon. When he passed away 1982, she stayed on at the Grand Canyon for ten more years. Then she moved back to Highpoint in 1992, and lives in the house across the street from where she was born.

Kathleen paints in the primitive style and all of the paintings of landscapes and buildings are from her childhood memory in the Highpoint area and of people and places she loved. Her paintings are currently on display at the Winston County Library in Louisville, MS throughout the month of July.

Mrs. Weeks is still as sharp as a tack and loves to visit with people. She has a very lively personality and is one of sweetest ladies you’ll ever meet.