Earl Weed grew up in Franklin, Nebraska, and left after completing high school to embark on a life of ministry. He received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He returned to the mid-west and was pastor of the Congregational Church in Athol, Kansas, when he entered military service during World War I, first as an enlisted man, and then as a U.S. Army chaplain. He remained in military service as a chaplain after the war, serving again during World War II, and retiring in 1947 as a U.S. Army colonel. In retirement he became pastor of the First Congregational Church in Asheville, North Carolina. He authored a book dedicated to the men of his World War I regiment titled “The Story of the Sixteenth Infantry in France.”