George B. Weeks

   Cause of his death was exposure.

  General Notes:

Newspaper article March 1964

Poplar Authorities in Poplar and Wolf Point Saturday were piecing togethe events which led them on the grim death paths of three persons. The strom caused death of one man earlier in the week ironically linked to the tragic highway deaths of two women Friday. the body of Fort Peck Tribal Policeman George Weeks was found about four miles from his truck Saturday. Friday evening, two women were killed in a car-train collision one-half mile west of here. ONe of the women, Mrs. Pat A. Murray, 36, of Brockton, was on her way to see her husband, Robert, who was helping search for Weeks. Also killed in the collision was Mrs. Mary M. Dribble, 33, of Poplar. Authorities said Weeks had apparently started walking from his stalled truck sometime early last week. They said he probably died frome exposure during bitter cold storms which raged in teh area early last week. Special Agent Clarence Thompson of the BIA said the truck was found on a trail just off the reservation road indicating Weeks might have become lost. The truck was found Friday evening and the search for Weeks was begun anew on Saturday morning.
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Frank Ramstad
I was at the University of Montana, 600 miles from home with three weeks of Christmas vacation coming up and no place to eat during those three weeks. I was homesick and wanted to be home for Christmas, so I got my old athletic enemy, George Weeks, and we decided to ride the freights home when the quarter ended. I would go to Poplar [MT], and he to Wolf Point (just 22 miles west of Poplar). My buddies pleaded with me not to try it. It was getting bitter cold, and there had been six hoboes pulled out of a box car near Missoula the first part of December--all frozen to death. However, I needed to eat during those three weeks. And I was homesick.

My last class before Christmas break was over at noon on December 17, 1932. I put on two suits of long underwear, two pairs of socks, four pairs of pants, two shirts, a mackinaw, an overcoat, plus overshoes and gloves. I knew there wouldn't be much eating on the trip home, so I found a pipe and some tobacco to smoke on the way. I didn't normally smoke, but I had heard that smoking would keep one from getting hungry.

George and I climbed aboard a freight in Missoula at 5:00 in the afternoon. The termperature was about 20 degrees below zero. Soon it was dark. There were six 'profressional' hoboes in the box car with George and me. One of them had a suitcase with a burning candle stuck on it. We all kept tramping around that candle-lit suitcase to keep warm. One of us would sit down against the box car wall and go to sleep. In about five minutes, someone would go over to the sleeping man, give him a gentle kick, and say, 'Buddy, you've slept long enough. Get up and walk.' Then someone else would sit down for a short nap. In that way we kept each other alive. In such bitter cold it is so easy to freeze to death. When one is freezing to death, he becomes warm and drowsy. He quietly goes to sleep and never wakes up.

Going over the Continental Divide between Missoula and Helena, the temperature dipped to 40 degrees below zero. We arrived in Helena at 1:00 in the morning. George and I went up to the jail and asked the jailer if we could sleep in the jail--there wasn't a freight out of Helena until 10:00 in the morning. The jailer said we couldn't sleep there, but said he would give us a ticket to the flop house.

In the hobo jargon, a 'flop' was a bed. In the 1930's, there were so many hoboes due to the Depression, that the Government decided to make life a little more bearable for them by constructing flop houses in strategic cities along the railroads. The flop houses were run under Army regulations, and one could do certain jobs to get a 'flop' and food.

We were met at the flop house by a tough-looking guy who had a sap in his back pocket. A sap is a leather pouch filled with lead shot which was used by law enforcement officers to take care of anyone who got contrary. This fellow told us to strip off and take a shower before going to bed. That shower at 1:30 a.m. was cold, but that fellow with the sap was convincing. The beds were crude but clean and made up with Army blankets.

George and I woke up at 8:00 and since no one was around, we slipped out before somebody could get us in on a work detail. We went to the depot and caught the 10:00 a.m. freight. George and I were now alone and had to keep each other awake. We both smoked quite a bit, and I believe it did help the hunger a little.

We got into Great Falls at 4:00 in the afternoon. I had a little money with me--possibly three dollars--that I was trying to keep intact to buy Christmas presents when I got home. However, when we got to Great Falls, we were so starved that I decided we had to have something to eat. (George had no money.) We each ate a twenty-cent meal, which I paid for.

The next freight out of Great Falls was a 5:00 the next morning. That was an awful long wait. George came up with an idea. We decided to ride the passenger train in the blinds behind the engine. A passenger train left at 7:00 that evening. The blinds are not enclosed, and we knew it would be cold, but we could get home about 12 hours sooner by riding them.

We hid behind the railroad shed until the train started moving, then made a run for it, and climbed into the blinds. Our reason for waiting for the train to start moving was that once it was moving, it wouldn't stop to kick us off. As the train gathered speed with us safely on it, we congratulated ourselves. It was a beautiful night, the moon was full, the snow was deep, and it was thirty below zero.

Oh! But those blinds were cold! This was the era before diesel locomotives. It was the day of the old steam, coal-burning locomotives. George and I got so cold, we finally crawled forward to a small ledge near the spout where they put water into the water tender. This at least got us out of the wind created by the motion of the train.

About half-way to Havre, the train started slowing down. Soon it stopped by a railroad water tower, and we were sitting by the engine water spout where they would put water in. We were also miles from nowhere, and we didn't relish having to walk if we got kicked off the train. It was a tense moment.

The fireman came walking back to pull down the tower spout and almost stumbled over us. I don't think he knew we were there, and it scared him. He stood looking at us without saying a word for about a minute. It seemed like an eternity. Finally I could stand the tension no longer and said, 'Are you taking on water?' That was a rather rhetorical question since we had stopped under the water tower. He answered that that was right. He then asked where were were going. We told him Havre. We helped him pull down the water spout and fill the storage tank, still scared stiff and just waiting for those words, 'Get off and get going.'

When we had the tank full, he asked if it was cold back there. We told him it sure was. Then to our amazement, he said, 'Boys, if you'll move up about five feet and lie flat, you'll find it warmer. There's hot water in the tank under you there.' The ride on into Havre from there was a relatively comfortable one.

When we got into Havre and got off the train, the immigration officers picked us up about 20 feet from the engine. There had been considerable trouble with aliens coming into the country from Canada, and they were watching all trains. When we convinced them that we had been born in the United States, they let us go.

It was now 11:00 in the evening of our second day on the freights. And we had cut 12 hours off our trip by catching that passenger train. We discovered that there was a freight leaving Havre at 5:00 in the morning. We got what sleep we could sitting in the Havre depot. At least it was warm sitting by that pot belly stove.

At 5:00 a.m., we found one empty box car in a freight train that was about a mile long. Even that car was only about half empty--it was half full of lumber. George and I hadn't had much sleep in the past three days, and we were tired. There were only two of us, and we both went to sleep. I don't know what woke me, but when I did wake up, my feet were half frozen. We didn't have much room to walk around in that box car, so we would kick our feet against the sides of the car, and there were some long grades in which the train slowedown to a drawl. We would get out and run alongside to get a little circulation through our legs. My feet bothered me for a month after that. We got into Wolf Point, Goerge's home town, at about 4:30 p.m. This was December 19. George and I bid each other good-bye, each saying, 'I'll see you in school after Christmas.'

The freight stayed in Wolf Point about 20 minutes. Poplar was 22 miles away. I went up to the engine and asked the engineer if he stopped in Poplar. He told me that they didn't--that I would have to ride to Brockton, about 11 miles on the other side of Poplar. That was a blow. I was dead tired and walking 11 miles wasn't going to be easy. I knew there was a sharp curve about 7 miles before we got to Poplar, and I knew the trains slowed for it. I decided I would try jumping there--7 miles would be easier to walk than 11.

When we got to the curve, the train did slow down some, but still the ground was going past so fast when I looked down that I decided it would be easier to walk 11 miles with two good legs than to try walking 7 miles on a broken leg. So I stayed on the freight.

We crossed the Poplar River about a mile before we got to Poplar. As were were going over the bridge, I noticed that we were slowing down. I looked out the car door up at the engine ahead. The engineer and brakeman were leaning out the cab window, looking back at my car. When they saw me, they motioned for me to get out on the rods, then gestured me to stay there. The freight slowed to about 3 miles per hour. Then the two trainmen motioned for me to jump. I got off in front of the depot without having to break stride. The mile-long freight had slowed down to let me off. I have found out that throughout the country, there are still many people desiring to help other people. It seems that back in the Depression days, this was especially true."

George married Mercedes Alma Archdale, daughter of Henry Archdale and Nellie English or Jack, on 25 Apr 1937 in Wolf Point, Montana. (Mercedes Alma Archdale was born on 23 Apr 1916 in Roosevelt Co, MT and died on 26 Jan 1975.)