Donald Johnston Weiss

I met my family for the first time in the early morning hours of November 20, 1934. All these years later my entire family has once again been waiting for my arrival. On February 8, 2026, I met up with them again when I went home to be with my Lord and Savior.

 Between these two meetings I have enjoyed many good memories growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two of my favorite memories from childhood are awaiting the man who came around every evening to light the gas street lights and also, the horse drawn milk wagons traveling the city streets and coming by our house in the mornings.



My Summer months were spent in Ocean City, New Jersey. As a young child I didn’t fully appreciate the oil slicks I saw on the beach or the dirigibles dropping depth charges off the coast during the years that World War Two rocked the world. I recall, too, young men of the United States Coast Guard, along with their German Shepherds, patrolling the boardwalk as they guarded our coastlines.

As a teenager, I enjoyed various summer jobs in Ocean City, N.J. My favorite job was riding my bike around the island delivering telegrams the summer I was 16.

During the summers of my college years I was employed by Ocean City as a cop. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, then later receiving an honorable discharge from the US Army, I met my wife, Chris. We settled in an old house in Newtown, Pennsylvania which we spent the next few years renovating.

I also began my teaching career a couple weeks following our wedding. Children arrived during the 12 years I spent as a Biology teacher at Council Rock High School in Newtown. In the summer of 1971 my family went along with me for a one year sabbatical while I was a graduate student at Michigan Tech University where I obtained my Master’s degree.



I spent an intense and busy year as a student, a teaching assistant and also doing research for my thesis, titled “Lead Concentration of Human Hair, 1871-1971”, the results which were published in Science magazine. 

We fell in love with Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during that year and two years later we moved back to Houghton permanently where I was fortunate to spend the next 23 years teaching Biology at Houghton High School, along with Anatomy & Physiology.



I would like to thank all of my students for their insight, their questions, the laughter we often shared and an amazing array of intriguing answers that often fell upon my ears.

As a teacher I would like to assign homework for all who read this. That is to love deeply and to forgive quickly, along with two essential lessons that were stressed and I hope were taken from my classroom; it is essential for the body’s well-being to “pee clear”, and, men, don’t forget to keep close check on those deviled eggs. Time will grade you.



After forty-eight years in our beloved Copper Country, Chris and I (and our German Shepherd, Perle) moved in the summer of 2022, to Valparaiso, Indiana to be closer to some of our family.



I am survived by my loving wife, Christine; daughter, Lynda (Chris) Henry of Jefferson, GA; sons: Andrew (Pat) and son, Ben of Anchorage, AK, and Pete (Sherry) of Valparaiso, IN along with daughters, Amy, Erica, Claire and Leslie.



Springtime sets the stage for one of the greatest transformations in the natural world. It is the construction of a butterfly from caterpillar soup. This soup forms when the body of the caterpillar dissolves into a liquid state within the chrysalis.

This transformation occurs in spite of the second law of thermodynamics.

This law states that entropy, disorder, always increases. That is why you cannot unscramble an egg.



Yet my Creator God has formed a butterfly from this soup.

 When you see a butterfly I hope it brings a smile as it reminds you death is only part of the journey and the best is yet to come.

In Accordance with Donald’s wishes, cremation will take place with no services. In lieu of flowers, memorial may be made to your local animal shelter.

If you have any thoughts, memories, or condolences you would like to share with my family please email them to petertweiss@gmail.com.