Lee Everett was a handsome, talented architect and artist. For many years he was married to one of my mom's best friends and had four daughters with her. When my parents decided to marry, it was Lee and his first wife who held my parents' engagement party. Our family affiliation goes back further, because Lee's dad Herb headed an architecture firm that did projects with our old family company.
When I was a toddler, my dad had some health issues, and in the fray of my family looking after him, I ended up staying with the Everetts for a time. The family was all very welcoming, and their lovely daughters were kind, patient and solicitous of me. The home of theirs that I recall was very contemporary and beautiful. When you came in the front door, there was a stone wall and water fountain and ivy, lit naturally by the sun through frosted glass brick. Even as a child, I could see this was a modern home very different than my own.
Lee's paintings are locally renowned and on several occasions the Allentown Morning Call newspaper called him "the dean of local watercolorists". Many area artists claim to have studied under his tutelage. Our family has one of his works in our living room, a lovely beach watercolor. Askart.com has a bio of Lee provided by John Dalles: "An artist and architect, Lee Everett works have been exhibited as recently as September 2005 at the Lehigh Carbon Community College. The college owns a collection of his watercolors, normally on display on walls all over campus. Everett won a Distinguished Building Award from the Pennsylvania Society of Architects for Allentown architectural firm H.F. Everett Associates' design of LCCC's Science-Technology building, now known as Science Hall. Despite a stroke in 1999, Everett, continued to paint from his home at an Allentown assisted living facility."
_____________________________________
The following article appeared in the Allentown newspaper in July 2005. It's a curiosity to note that the Ackermans mentioned in this piece now live in one of our family's "Romberger Homes" which used to belong to my great-aunt Amy. Those homes, envisioned by my great grandpa, were made real on paper by Lee's father's firm.
Stroke can't stop flow of Lee Everett's colors from the heart
In Room 118 of NewSeasons at MountainView, an assisted-care facility in Allentown, one of the deans of Lehigh Valley watercolorists paints with the wrong hand. Lee Everett moves a brush with his left fingers, which he trained himself to do after a stroke paralyzed his right side in April 1999. Working two to three hours most days at a drafting table, the 85-year-old former architect blocks out barns, shadows canyons, charges harbors with electric currents.
The painting would be mighty fine for anyone with both lobes in sync. It's pretty remarkable for someone whose right half is largely shut down. Everett, whose poor sight skews his color sense and keeps him from reading, simply refuses to retire his passion for watercoloring the world.
This tenacity will be celebrated Wednesday afternoon with an exhibition of Everett's recent watercolors at NewSeasons, where he's lived for six years. Mounted by the Baum School of Art, where Everett taught for eight years, the show of landscapes and seascapes is in an appropriately therapeutic setting. Before the stroke, Everett frequently donated works for auctions benefitting a host of hospitals, some of which (Allentown Hospital) he helped build, one of which (Good Shepherd) helped him recover from paralysis. He also served on a board that chose art for Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.
There was a time, in the 1980s and '90s, when Everett ran an art network. His watercolors were owned by Mack and GMC Diebert Trucks, the National Geographic Society and the Hiroshima Electric Co. Colleges, banks, restaurants -- they all had his paintings on the wall. The City of Allentown chose him to paint its official Christmas card. The Saucon Valley Country Club commissioned him to posterize its professional senior tournaments. Even Arnold Palmer was a client.
Whether painting a Pennsylvania farm, an Arizona desert or a Caribbean beach, Everett combined vivid color, a humming sense of place and harmonious composition. His superior drawing was guided by his blueprints for Everett Associates, a family architecture and engineering firm that built 470 schools, churches and other projects from 1946 to 1979. His careers overlapped during conferences of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of American Registered Architects, which annually presented one of his watercolors as a prize.
In 1979 Everett retired at 58, yearning to paint full time. "Architecture was his job," says his wife, Margie, a care manager for the Lehigh County Office of Aging. "Painting was his love."
In retirement Everett became a one-man art gang. He led painting workshops in the Philadelphia area and Florida. He judged shows, including an international for the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He had more than a dozen solo shows. From 1976 to 1999 he won at least one prize every year.
Everett was a prolific teacher, too. At the Baum School he taught 320 students from 1978 to 1986. Some of his pupils -- Marylou Cummings, David Donnangelo, Nancy Hill -- became prominent painters.
"He was a wonderful teacher," says Marian Fetterman, who studied with Everett during his entire Baum School term. "He was very patient. He showed you what to do without painting on your work, so it stayed your work. There was quite a waiting list to study with him. And if he gave classes today, he'd still have a list."
Everett was an angel to the Baum School's Circulating Picture Club, which rents works to help civilize corporate spaces. In the 1970s he and Rudy Ackerman, the school's executive director, played an amusing game of cat and mouse. Ackerman visited Everett's house and offered to buy his works for the club. Everett initially declined the proposal, insisting he had nothing worth framing, let alone selling. Ignoring Everett's rejection, Ackerman removed watercolors from drawers, selected a few and convinced Everett they were worthy of purchase. Ackerman left with as many as 18 paintings, most of them freshly signed.
That's why the Baum School owns more than 75 Everetts. And that's how Everett helped boost the number of works in the Circulating Picture Club from around 200 in the '70s to more than 2,000 today.
"There's always a story connected with a Lee Everett watercolor," says Ackerman. "Even if there's no one in it, you could almost write a story."
The story changed dramatically when Everett suffered a stroke in April 1999. Margie Everett recalls seeing stroke-like symptoms two days earlier, when her husband struggled to find words during a videotaped acceptance speech for an Arts Ovation award from the Allentown Arts Commission. Paralysis prevented Everett from attending the ceremony that month.
Everett says he never considered abandoning painting, even when his doctor doubted he would paint again. According to Margie Everett, he refused to let paralysis kill his will. "Lee has always been more of a doer," she says, "than an observer."
Therapists helped Everett learn to zip a zipper and grip a brush. On his own he strained to train his right brain to do his left hand's bidding. In the fall of 1999 he completed his first post-stroke pictures with some of his pre-stroke depth and deftness. One picture was a duplication of a clipper ship from a magazine photo; another was an original portrait of a couple strolling a beach. He gave the latter to his wife as a gift.
Everett received an early vote of confidence from fellow Allentown native and watercolorist Jim Musselman, who recommended him for the 1999 Arts Ovation award. Impressed by Everett's left-hand watercolors, he exhibited eight of them during the 2000 ceremony.
Musselman believes Everett's stroke had one positive effect. It forced him to draw less like an architect, to paint nature more naturally. "We thought Lee had finally loosened up," says Musselman, speaking of local watercolorists. "I was astounded by how spontaneous his [left-hand] works were. They were little gems. It just proves that you don't have to stop working if you're disabled. You can do it if you put your mind to it."
Everett's disability changed his ability to paint. Before the stroke, he worked outdoors as much as possible, taking holiday art tours to France and the Fiji islands. Today, his studio is his small room at NewSeasons. He picks subjects from an index box crammed with photographs of meadow and desert, snow and sand. To focus his eye, he crops photos with masking tape. To steady his hand, he uses a smaller brush on smaller paper.
The watercolors are blockier and blurrier than Everett's meticulous pre-stroke works. Yet they're brighter and bolder. Arizona rocks are briskly shadowed with cobalt blue. The water in a Massachusetts harbor wriggles with electric-eel waves. The bark on a Pennsylvania tree streams with maypole hues. Once a realist, Everett has become an honorary impressionist.
Emotionally, Everett hovers between optimism and pessimism. Asked if he's happy with his left-hand works, he says no, shaking his head vigorously. Prodded by his wife, he grudgingly admits he still enjoys painting. He's proud of the pre-stroke works in his room, including a watercolor of fishing in Florida and an oil of boating in Massachusetts. Yet they're painful reminders of what's beyond his reach.
Everett's artist daughter, Jan DeChristopher, understands her father's frustration. "I think he knows what he wants to do but it doesn't always come out on paper," says DeChristopher, who creates acrylics and mixed-media pieces. "He loves nature but he can't paint outdoors because the bright light is so hard on his eyes. It's just so uninspiring to paint in that little room. If he were painting outdoors, I think that joy would come back."
Everett's friends are trying to keep him engaged and enthused. Last fall DeChristopher placed two of her father's works in the Parkland Art League exhibition. A pre-stroke oil and a post-stroke watercolor were displayed at the Jewish Community Center in Allentown, one of Everett's architecture projects. According to DeChristopher, her father enjoyed watching two people compete to buy the oil, a farm and mountain scene with warm purples and golds.
Everett's shaky right hand prevents him from using a walker. Yet he's a wheelchair whiz, propelling himself with a sneakered left foot. His left-hand grip is firm, his grin broad, his humor intact. Told that one of his stock sayings, "This is good," sounds like the Pennsylvania Dutch "This is goot," he laughs heartily, from the gut.
Everett's life, in short, is a watercolor: solid, opaque, transparent. "He's very positive and very courageous," says DeChristopher. "I'm just happy that he's painting. That's who he is; that's his soul."
______________________________________
I know more about the history of Lee's family's architectural firm than about his later life because of studying our family business, Romberger Cast Stone. That architectural firm had a long and prestigious history in Allentown, turning out beautiful homes, the oldest section of the Allentown Art Museum (formerly First Presbyterian Church), and a stunning private home at 1227 Hamilton built 1897 for industrialist George Ormrod which later was the home of Gen. Harry C. Trexler, and later the Trexler Trust. The firm also produced the plans for Charles Ziegenfuss' Victorian mansion at 16th and Hamilton, now the Burkholder Funeral Home. In 1888, Jacoby designed Allentown's Zion's Reformed Church, the church with the Liberty Bell. Also flowing from their drawing tables were the Breinig & Bachman office and the former Central Market Hall (built 1894, which was later the Lyric Theater) which has become Symphony Hall. The firm also designed for Bethlehem Steel Co., as well as Lehigh University's first science building and the Allentown Post Office. The Zollinger-Harned Building at 6th and Hamilton (on the National Register of Historic Places) was also one of their buildings. On their 1946 questionaire from the American Institute of Architects, they also cite Allentown State Hospital, Mahanoy Township High School, East Stroudsburg State Teachers College, Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, and Arcadia Knitting Mills. Their 1953 questionaire included Parkland High School, Bensalem High School, Palisades High School, Gnadden Huetten Hospital, Van Sciver Furniture, Raub Junior High (1930), Harrison Junior High (later Harrison-Morton), and many more.
The firm was begun by Gustavus Adolphus Aschbach and Lewis Schelly Jacoby. After Aschbach's death in 1875, Jacoby worked solo while also serving as Allentown's municipal engineer. In Feb. of 1895, he partnered with S. Addison Weishampel, a Philadelphia architect and the firm became Jacoby & Weishampel. It later became Jacoby, Weishampel & Biggin when they were joined by Frederic C. Biggin of Bethlehem from 1899 to 1904. After Weishampel died in 1916, Jacoby continued solo until joined by Lee's father Herbert Furman Everett in 1919. After Jacoby died, the firm became H.F. Everett and Associates, with Robert Ochs, Warren Oswald and Paul Frankenfield. Herb's son Lee joined the company in 1946. The families of Ochs, Everetts and my Rombergers all had summer homes at Pine Run in Pennsylvania.
The 1953 principals of the company are all on FindAGrave. They include Herbert F. Everett, Robert E. Ochs, Warren H. Oswald, Paul T. Frankenfield, and Herb's son, our subject Lee Everett.
_____________________________________
Lee Everett, 91, died Tuesday, February 1, 2011. He was the husband of Marjorie (Duld) Everett the past 40 years and was the son of the late Herbert F. and Helen (Baker) Everett. He was a graduate of Allentown High School and the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture and served as a Navy lieutenant on a LST in the South Pacific during WWII. After the war he became a partner in the architectural firm of Everett Associates Architects and Engineers and designed many local schools and other buildings including Dieruff High School and the First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. Upon retirement he pursued his passion for watercolor painting and taught at the Baum Art School and was featured in many art exhibits and taught numerous workshops. He was a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Society, Lehigh Art Alliance and others. He was proud to be commissioned to paint the first annual Christmas card for the City of Allentown in 1988 and to receive the Arts Ovation Award in 1999. His talent extended to the piano, especially jazz, and he also enjoyed golf. He attended Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church.
Survivors: Besides his wife, he is survived by daughters, Jann, wife of Frank DeChristopher Jr. Susan Everett; Sally, wife of Richard Krznaric; Pamela, wife of Frank Ring; Cindy Kalmar and son Peter Everett, husband of Kelly, 14 grandchildren and one great granddaughter. He was predeceased by brothers Herbert and Daniel.
Services: 11:00 am, Saturday, February 5th at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church, 1151 S. Cedar Crest Blvd., Allentown. Visitation 10 to 11 am Saturday in the church.
Interment at Grandview Cemetery.
Contributions: In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church or Baum Art School both in care of Stephens Funeral Home, Inc., 1335 Linden St. Allentown PA 18102.
When I was a toddler, my dad had some health issues, and in the fray of my family looking after him, I ended up staying with the Everetts for a time. The family was all very welcoming, and their lovely daughters were kind, patient and solicitous of me. The home of theirs that I recall was very contemporary and beautiful. When you came in the front door, there was a stone wall and water fountain and ivy, lit naturally by the sun through frosted glass brick. Even as a child, I could see this was a modern home very different than my own.
Lee's paintings are locally renowned and on several occasions the Allentown Morning Call newspaper called him "the dean of local watercolorists". Many area artists claim to have studied under his tutelage. Our family has one of his works in our living room, a lovely beach watercolor. Askart.com has a bio of Lee provided by John Dalles: "An artist and architect, Lee Everett works have been exhibited as recently as September 2005 at the Lehigh Carbon Community College. The college owns a collection of his watercolors, normally on display on walls all over campus. Everett won a Distinguished Building Award from the Pennsylvania Society of Architects for Allentown architectural firm H.F. Everett Associates' design of LCCC's Science-Technology building, now known as Science Hall. Despite a stroke in 1999, Everett, continued to paint from his home at an Allentown assisted living facility."
_____________________________________
The following article appeared in the Allentown newspaper in July 2005. It's a curiosity to note that the Ackermans mentioned in this piece now live in one of our family's "Romberger Homes" which used to belong to my great-aunt Amy. Those homes, envisioned by my great grandpa, were made real on paper by Lee's father's firm.
Stroke can't stop flow of Lee Everett's colors from the heart
In Room 118 of NewSeasons at MountainView, an assisted-care facility in Allentown, one of the deans of Lehigh Valley watercolorists paints with the wrong hand. Lee Everett moves a brush with his left fingers, which he trained himself to do after a stroke paralyzed his right side in April 1999. Working two to three hours most days at a drafting table, the 85-year-old former architect blocks out barns, shadows canyons, charges harbors with electric currents.
The painting would be mighty fine for anyone with both lobes in sync. It's pretty remarkable for someone whose right half is largely shut down. Everett, whose poor sight skews his color sense and keeps him from reading, simply refuses to retire his passion for watercoloring the world.
This tenacity will be celebrated Wednesday afternoon with an exhibition of Everett's recent watercolors at NewSeasons, where he's lived for six years. Mounted by the Baum School of Art, where Everett taught for eight years, the show of landscapes and seascapes is in an appropriately therapeutic setting. Before the stroke, Everett frequently donated works for auctions benefitting a host of hospitals, some of which (Allentown Hospital) he helped build, one of which (Good Shepherd) helped him recover from paralysis. He also served on a board that chose art for Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.
There was a time, in the 1980s and '90s, when Everett ran an art network. His watercolors were owned by Mack and GMC Diebert Trucks, the National Geographic Society and the Hiroshima Electric Co. Colleges, banks, restaurants -- they all had his paintings on the wall. The City of Allentown chose him to paint its official Christmas card. The Saucon Valley Country Club commissioned him to posterize its professional senior tournaments. Even Arnold Palmer was a client.
Whether painting a Pennsylvania farm, an Arizona desert or a Caribbean beach, Everett combined vivid color, a humming sense of place and harmonious composition. His superior drawing was guided by his blueprints for Everett Associates, a family architecture and engineering firm that built 470 schools, churches and other projects from 1946 to 1979. His careers overlapped during conferences of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of American Registered Architects, which annually presented one of his watercolors as a prize.
In 1979 Everett retired at 58, yearning to paint full time. "Architecture was his job," says his wife, Margie, a care manager for the Lehigh County Office of Aging. "Painting was his love."
In retirement Everett became a one-man art gang. He led painting workshops in the Philadelphia area and Florida. He judged shows, including an international for the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He had more than a dozen solo shows. From 1976 to 1999 he won at least one prize every year.
Everett was a prolific teacher, too. At the Baum School he taught 320 students from 1978 to 1986. Some of his pupils -- Marylou Cummings, David Donnangelo, Nancy Hill -- became prominent painters.
"He was a wonderful teacher," says Marian Fetterman, who studied with Everett during his entire Baum School term. "He was very patient. He showed you what to do without painting on your work, so it stayed your work. There was quite a waiting list to study with him. And if he gave classes today, he'd still have a list."
Everett was an angel to the Baum School's Circulating Picture Club, which rents works to help civilize corporate spaces. In the 1970s he and Rudy Ackerman, the school's executive director, played an amusing game of cat and mouse. Ackerman visited Everett's house and offered to buy his works for the club. Everett initially declined the proposal, insisting he had nothing worth framing, let alone selling. Ignoring Everett's rejection, Ackerman removed watercolors from drawers, selected a few and convinced Everett they were worthy of purchase. Ackerman left with as many as 18 paintings, most of them freshly signed.
That's why the Baum School owns more than 75 Everetts. And that's how Everett helped boost the number of works in the Circulating Picture Club from around 200 in the '70s to more than 2,000 today.
"There's always a story connected with a Lee Everett watercolor," says Ackerman. "Even if there's no one in it, you could almost write a story."
The story changed dramatically when Everett suffered a stroke in April 1999. Margie Everett recalls seeing stroke-like symptoms two days earlier, when her husband struggled to find words during a videotaped acceptance speech for an Arts Ovation award from the Allentown Arts Commission. Paralysis prevented Everett from attending the ceremony that month.
Everett says he never considered abandoning painting, even when his doctor doubted he would paint again. According to Margie Everett, he refused to let paralysis kill his will. "Lee has always been more of a doer," she says, "than an observer."
Therapists helped Everett learn to zip a zipper and grip a brush. On his own he strained to train his right brain to do his left hand's bidding. In the fall of 1999 he completed his first post-stroke pictures with some of his pre-stroke depth and deftness. One picture was a duplication of a clipper ship from a magazine photo; another was an original portrait of a couple strolling a beach. He gave the latter to his wife as a gift.
Everett received an early vote of confidence from fellow Allentown native and watercolorist Jim Musselman, who recommended him for the 1999 Arts Ovation award. Impressed by Everett's left-hand watercolors, he exhibited eight of them during the 2000 ceremony.
Musselman believes Everett's stroke had one positive effect. It forced him to draw less like an architect, to paint nature more naturally. "We thought Lee had finally loosened up," says Musselman, speaking of local watercolorists. "I was astounded by how spontaneous his [left-hand] works were. They were little gems. It just proves that you don't have to stop working if you're disabled. You can do it if you put your mind to it."
Everett's disability changed his ability to paint. Before the stroke, he worked outdoors as much as possible, taking holiday art tours to France and the Fiji islands. Today, his studio is his small room at NewSeasons. He picks subjects from an index box crammed with photographs of meadow and desert, snow and sand. To focus his eye, he crops photos with masking tape. To steady his hand, he uses a smaller brush on smaller paper.
The watercolors are blockier and blurrier than Everett's meticulous pre-stroke works. Yet they're brighter and bolder. Arizona rocks are briskly shadowed with cobalt blue. The water in a Massachusetts harbor wriggles with electric-eel waves. The bark on a Pennsylvania tree streams with maypole hues. Once a realist, Everett has become an honorary impressionist.
Emotionally, Everett hovers between optimism and pessimism. Asked if he's happy with his left-hand works, he says no, shaking his head vigorously. Prodded by his wife, he grudgingly admits he still enjoys painting. He's proud of the pre-stroke works in his room, including a watercolor of fishing in Florida and an oil of boating in Massachusetts. Yet they're painful reminders of what's beyond his reach.
Everett's artist daughter, Jan DeChristopher, understands her father's frustration. "I think he knows what he wants to do but it doesn't always come out on paper," says DeChristopher, who creates acrylics and mixed-media pieces. "He loves nature but he can't paint outdoors because the bright light is so hard on his eyes. It's just so uninspiring to paint in that little room. If he were painting outdoors, I think that joy would come back."
Everett's friends are trying to keep him engaged and enthused. Last fall DeChristopher placed two of her father's works in the Parkland Art League exhibition. A pre-stroke oil and a post-stroke watercolor were displayed at the Jewish Community Center in Allentown, one of Everett's architecture projects. According to DeChristopher, her father enjoyed watching two people compete to buy the oil, a farm and mountain scene with warm purples and golds.
Everett's shaky right hand prevents him from using a walker. Yet he's a wheelchair whiz, propelling himself with a sneakered left foot. His left-hand grip is firm, his grin broad, his humor intact. Told that one of his stock sayings, "This is good," sounds like the Pennsylvania Dutch "This is goot," he laughs heartily, from the gut.
Everett's life, in short, is a watercolor: solid, opaque, transparent. "He's very positive and very courageous," says DeChristopher. "I'm just happy that he's painting. That's who he is; that's his soul."
______________________________________
I know more about the history of Lee's family's architectural firm than about his later life because of studying our family business, Romberger Cast Stone. That architectural firm had a long and prestigious history in Allentown, turning out beautiful homes, the oldest section of the Allentown Art Museum (formerly First Presbyterian Church), and a stunning private home at 1227 Hamilton built 1897 for industrialist George Ormrod which later was the home of Gen. Harry C. Trexler, and later the Trexler Trust. The firm also produced the plans for Charles Ziegenfuss' Victorian mansion at 16th and Hamilton, now the Burkholder Funeral Home. In 1888, Jacoby designed Allentown's Zion's Reformed Church, the church with the Liberty Bell. Also flowing from their drawing tables were the Breinig & Bachman office and the former Central Market Hall (built 1894, which was later the Lyric Theater) which has become Symphony Hall. The firm also designed for Bethlehem Steel Co., as well as Lehigh University's first science building and the Allentown Post Office. The Zollinger-Harned Building at 6th and Hamilton (on the National Register of Historic Places) was also one of their buildings. On their 1946 questionaire from the American Institute of Architects, they also cite Allentown State Hospital, Mahanoy Township High School, East Stroudsburg State Teachers College, Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, and Arcadia Knitting Mills. Their 1953 questionaire included Parkland High School, Bensalem High School, Palisades High School, Gnadden Huetten Hospital, Van Sciver Furniture, Raub Junior High (1930), Harrison Junior High (later Harrison-Morton), and many more.
The firm was begun by Gustavus Adolphus Aschbach and Lewis Schelly Jacoby. After Aschbach's death in 1875, Jacoby worked solo while also serving as Allentown's municipal engineer. In Feb. of 1895, he partnered with S. Addison Weishampel, a Philadelphia architect and the firm became Jacoby & Weishampel. It later became Jacoby, Weishampel & Biggin when they were joined by Frederic C. Biggin of Bethlehem from 1899 to 1904. After Weishampel died in 1916, Jacoby continued solo until joined by Lee's father Herbert Furman Everett in 1919. After Jacoby died, the firm became H.F. Everett and Associates, with Robert Ochs, Warren Oswald and Paul Frankenfield. Herb's son Lee joined the company in 1946. The families of Ochs, Everetts and my Rombergers all had summer homes at Pine Run in Pennsylvania.
The 1953 principals of the company are all on FindAGrave. They include Herbert F. Everett, Robert E. Ochs, Warren H. Oswald, Paul T. Frankenfield, and Herb's son, our subject Lee Everett.
_____________________________________
Lee Everett, 91, died Tuesday, February 1, 2011. He was the husband of Marjorie (Duld) Everett the past 40 years and was the son of the late Herbert F. and Helen (Baker) Everett. He was a graduate of Allentown High School and the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture and served as a Navy lieutenant on a LST in the South Pacific during WWII. After the war he became a partner in the architectural firm of Everett Associates Architects and Engineers and designed many local schools and other buildings including Dieruff High School and the First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. Upon retirement he pursued his passion for watercolor painting and taught at the Baum Art School and was featured in many art exhibits and taught numerous workshops. He was a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Society, Lehigh Art Alliance and others. He was proud to be commissioned to paint the first annual Christmas card for the City of Allentown in 1988 and to receive the Arts Ovation Award in 1999. His talent extended to the piano, especially jazz, and he also enjoyed golf. He attended Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church.
Survivors: Besides his wife, he is survived by daughters, Jann, wife of Frank DeChristopher Jr. Susan Everett; Sally, wife of Richard Krznaric; Pamela, wife of Frank Ring; Cindy Kalmar and son Peter Everett, husband of Kelly, 14 grandchildren and one great granddaughter. He was predeceased by brothers Herbert and Daniel.
Services: 11:00 am, Saturday, February 5th at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church, 1151 S. Cedar Crest Blvd., Allentown. Visitation 10 to 11 am Saturday in the church.
Interment at Grandview Cemetery.
Contributions: In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church or Baum Art School both in care of Stephens Funeral Home, Inc., 1335 Linden St. Allentown PA 18102.
Lee Everett was a handsome, talented architect and artist. For many years he was married to one of my mom's best friends and had four daughters with her. When my parents decided to marry, it was Lee and his first wife who held my parents' engagement party. Our family affiliation goes back further, because Lee's dad Herb headed an architecture firm that did projects with our old family company.
When I was a toddler, my dad had some health issues, and in the fray of my family looking after him, I ended up staying with the Everetts for a time. The family was all very welcoming, and their lovely daughters were kind, patient and solicitous of me. The home of theirs that I recall was very contemporary and beautiful. When you came in the front door, there was a stone wall and water fountain and ivy, lit naturally by the sun through frosted glass brick. Even as a child, I could see this was a modern home very different than my own.
Lee's paintings are locally renowned and on several occasions the Allentown Morning Call newspaper called him "the dean of local watercolorists". Many area artists claim to have studied under his tutelage. Our family has one of his works in our living room, a lovely beach watercolor. Askart.com has a bio of Lee provided by John Dalles: "An artist and architect, Lee Everett works have been exhibited as recently as September 2005 at the Lehigh Carbon Community College. The college owns a collection of his watercolors, normally on display on walls all over campus. Everett won a Distinguished Building Award from the Pennsylvania Society of Architects for Allentown architectural firm H.F. Everett Associates' design of LCCC's Science-Technology building, now known as Science Hall. Despite a stroke in 1999, Everett, continued to paint from his home at an Allentown assisted living facility."
_____________________________________
The following article appeared in the Allentown newspaper in July 2005. It's a curiosity to note that the Ackermans mentioned in this piece now live in one of our family's "Romberger Homes" which used to belong to my great-aunt Amy. Those homes, envisioned by my great grandpa, were made real on paper by Lee's father's firm.
Stroke can't stop flow of Lee Everett's colors from the heart
In Room 118 of NewSeasons at MountainView, an assisted-care facility in Allentown, one of the deans of Lehigh Valley watercolorists paints with the wrong hand. Lee Everett moves a brush with his left fingers, which he trained himself to do after a stroke paralyzed his right side in April 1999. Working two to three hours most days at a drafting table, the 85-year-old former architect blocks out barns, shadows canyons, charges harbors with electric currents.
The painting would be mighty fine for anyone with both lobes in sync. It's pretty remarkable for someone whose right half is largely shut down. Everett, whose poor sight skews his color sense and keeps him from reading, simply refuses to retire his passion for watercoloring the world.
This tenacity will be celebrated Wednesday afternoon with an exhibition of Everett's recent watercolors at NewSeasons, where he's lived for six years. Mounted by the Baum School of Art, where Everett taught for eight years, the show of landscapes and seascapes is in an appropriately therapeutic setting. Before the stroke, Everett frequently donated works for auctions benefitting a host of hospitals, some of which (Allentown Hospital) he helped build, one of which (Good Shepherd) helped him recover from paralysis. He also served on a board that chose art for Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.
There was a time, in the 1980s and '90s, when Everett ran an art network. His watercolors were owned by Mack and GMC Diebert Trucks, the National Geographic Society and the Hiroshima Electric Co. Colleges, banks, restaurants -- they all had his paintings on the wall. The City of Allentown chose him to paint its official Christmas card. The Saucon Valley Country Club commissioned him to posterize its professional senior tournaments. Even Arnold Palmer was a client.
Whether painting a Pennsylvania farm, an Arizona desert or a Caribbean beach, Everett combined vivid color, a humming sense of place and harmonious composition. His superior drawing was guided by his blueprints for Everett Associates, a family architecture and engineering firm that built 470 schools, churches and other projects from 1946 to 1979. His careers overlapped during conferences of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of American Registered Architects, which annually presented one of his watercolors as a prize.
In 1979 Everett retired at 58, yearning to paint full time. "Architecture was his job," says his wife, Margie, a care manager for the Lehigh County Office of Aging. "Painting was his love."
In retirement Everett became a one-man art gang. He led painting workshops in the Philadelphia area and Florida. He judged shows, including an international for the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He had more than a dozen solo shows. From 1976 to 1999 he won at least one prize every year.
Everett was a prolific teacher, too. At the Baum School he taught 320 students from 1978 to 1986. Some of his pupils -- Marylou Cummings, David Donnangelo, Nancy Hill -- became prominent painters.
"He was a wonderful teacher," says Marian Fetterman, who studied with Everett during his entire Baum School term. "He was very patient. He showed you what to do without painting on your work, so it stayed your work. There was quite a waiting list to study with him. And if he gave classes today, he'd still have a list."
Everett was an angel to the Baum School's Circulating Picture Club, which rents works to help civilize corporate spaces. In the 1970s he and Rudy Ackerman, the school's executive director, played an amusing game of cat and mouse. Ackerman visited Everett's house and offered to buy his works for the club. Everett initially declined the proposal, insisting he had nothing worth framing, let alone selling. Ignoring Everett's rejection, Ackerman removed watercolors from drawers, selected a few and convinced Everett they were worthy of purchase. Ackerman left with as many as 18 paintings, most of them freshly signed.
That's why the Baum School owns more than 75 Everetts. And that's how Everett helped boost the number of works in the Circulating Picture Club from around 200 in the '70s to more than 2,000 today.
"There's always a story connected with a Lee Everett watercolor," says Ackerman. "Even if there's no one in it, you could almost write a story."
The story changed dramatically when Everett suffered a stroke in April 1999. Margie Everett recalls seeing stroke-like symptoms two days earlier, when her husband struggled to find words during a videotaped acceptance speech for an Arts Ovation award from the Allentown Arts Commission. Paralysis prevented Everett from attending the ceremony that month.
Everett says he never considered abandoning painting, even when his doctor doubted he would paint again. According to Margie Everett, he refused to let paralysis kill his will. "Lee has always been more of a doer," she says, "than an observer."
Therapists helped Everett learn to zip a zipper and grip a brush. On his own he strained to train his right brain to do his left hand's bidding. In the fall of 1999 he completed his first post-stroke pictures with some of his pre-stroke depth and deftness. One picture was a duplication of a clipper ship from a magazine photo; another was an original portrait of a couple strolling a beach. He gave the latter to his wife as a gift.
Everett received an early vote of confidence from fellow Allentown native and watercolorist Jim Musselman, who recommended him for the 1999 Arts Ovation award. Impressed by Everett's left-hand watercolors, he exhibited eight of them during the 2000 ceremony.
Musselman believes Everett's stroke had one positive effect. It forced him to draw less like an architect, to paint nature more naturally. "We thought Lee had finally loosened up," says Musselman, speaking of local watercolorists. "I was astounded by how spontaneous his [left-hand] works were. They were little gems. It just proves that you don't have to stop working if you're disabled. You can do it if you put your mind to it."
Everett's disability changed his ability to paint. Before the stroke, he worked outdoors as much as possible, taking holiday art tours to France and the Fiji islands. Today, his studio is his small room at NewSeasons. He picks subjects from an index box crammed with photographs of meadow and desert, snow and sand. To focus his eye, he crops photos with masking tape. To steady his hand, he uses a smaller brush on smaller paper.
The watercolors are blockier and blurrier than Everett's meticulous pre-stroke works. Yet they're brighter and bolder. Arizona rocks are briskly shadowed with cobalt blue. The water in a Massachusetts harbor wriggles with electric-eel waves. The bark on a Pennsylvania tree streams with maypole hues. Once a realist, Everett has become an honorary impressionist.
Emotionally, Everett hovers between optimism and pessimism. Asked if he's happy with his left-hand works, he says no, shaking his head vigorously. Prodded by his wife, he grudgingly admits he still enjoys painting. He's proud of the pre-stroke works in his room, including a watercolor of fishing in Florida and an oil of boating in Massachusetts. Yet they're painful reminders of what's beyond his reach.
Everett's artist daughter, Jan DeChristopher, understands her father's frustration. "I think he knows what he wants to do but it doesn't always come out on paper," says DeChristopher, who creates acrylics and mixed-media pieces. "He loves nature but he can't paint outdoors because the bright light is so hard on his eyes. It's just so uninspiring to paint in that little room. If he were painting outdoors, I think that joy would come back."
Everett's friends are trying to keep him engaged and enthused. Last fall DeChristopher placed two of her father's works in the Parkland Art League exhibition. A pre-stroke oil and a post-stroke watercolor were displayed at the Jewish Community Center in Allentown, one of Everett's architecture projects. According to DeChristopher, her father enjoyed watching two people compete to buy the oil, a farm and mountain scene with warm purples and golds.
Everett's shaky right hand prevents him from using a walker. Yet he's a wheelchair whiz, propelling himself with a sneakered left foot. His left-hand grip is firm, his grin broad, his humor intact. Told that one of his stock sayings, "This is good," sounds like the Pennsylvania Dutch "This is goot," he laughs heartily, from the gut.
Everett's life, in short, is a watercolor: solid, opaque, transparent. "He's very positive and very courageous," says DeChristopher. "I'm just happy that he's painting. That's who he is; that's his soul."
______________________________________
I know more about the history of Lee's family's architectural firm than about his later life because of studying our family business, Romberger Cast Stone. That architectural firm had a long and prestigious history in Allentown, turning out beautiful homes, the oldest section of the Allentown Art Museum (formerly First Presbyterian Church), and a stunning private home at 1227 Hamilton built 1897 for industrialist George Ormrod which later was the home of Gen. Harry C. Trexler, and later the Trexler Trust. The firm also produced the plans for Charles Ziegenfuss' Victorian mansion at 16th and Hamilton, now the Burkholder Funeral Home. In 1888, Jacoby designed Allentown's Zion's Reformed Church, the church with the Liberty Bell. Also flowing from their drawing tables were the Breinig & Bachman office and the former Central Market Hall (built 1894, which was later the Lyric Theater) which has become Symphony Hall. The firm also designed for Bethlehem Steel Co., as well as Lehigh University's first science building and the Allentown Post Office. The Zollinger-Harned Building at 6th and Hamilton (on the National Register of Historic Places) was also one of their buildings. On their 1946 questionaire from the American Institute of Architects, they also cite Allentown State Hospital, Mahanoy Township High School, East Stroudsburg State Teachers College, Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, and Arcadia Knitting Mills. Their 1953 questionaire included Parkland High School, Bensalem High School, Palisades High School, Gnadden Huetten Hospital, Van Sciver Furniture, Raub Junior High (1930), Harrison Junior High (later Harrison-Morton), and many more.
The firm was begun by Gustavus Adolphus Aschbach and Lewis Schelly Jacoby. After Aschbach's death in 1875, Jacoby worked solo while also serving as Allentown's municipal engineer. In Feb. of 1895, he partnered with S. Addison Weishampel, a Philadelphia architect and the firm became Jacoby & Weishampel. It later became Jacoby, Weishampel & Biggin when they were joined by Frederic C. Biggin of Bethlehem from 1899 to 1904. After Weishampel died in 1916, Jacoby continued solo until joined by Lee's father Herbert Furman Everett in 1919. After Jacoby died, the firm became H.F. Everett and Associates, with Robert Ochs, Warren Oswald and Paul Frankenfield. Herb's son Lee joined the company in 1946. The families of Ochs, Everetts and my Rombergers all had summer homes at Pine Run in Pennsylvania.
The 1953 principals of the company are all on FindAGrave. They include Herbert F. Everett, Robert E. Ochs, Warren H. Oswald, Paul T. Frankenfield, and Herb's son, our subject Lee Everett.
_____________________________________
Lee Everett, 91, died Tuesday, February 1, 2011. He was the husband of Marjorie (Duld) Everett the past 40 years and was the son of the late Herbert F. and Helen (Baker) Everett. He was a graduate of Allentown High School and the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture and served as a Navy lieutenant on a LST in the South Pacific during WWII. After the war he became a partner in the architectural firm of Everett Associates Architects and Engineers and designed many local schools and other buildings including Dieruff High School and the First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. Upon retirement he pursued his passion for watercolor painting and taught at the Baum Art School and was featured in many art exhibits and taught numerous workshops. He was a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Society, Lehigh Art Alliance and others. He was proud to be commissioned to paint the first annual Christmas card for the City of Allentown in 1988 and to receive the Arts Ovation Award in 1999. His talent extended to the piano, especially jazz, and he also enjoyed golf. He attended Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church.
Survivors: Besides his wife, he is survived by daughters, Jann, wife of Frank DeChristopher Jr. Susan Everett; Sally, wife of Richard Krznaric; Pamela, wife of Frank Ring; Cindy Kalmar and son Peter Everett, husband of Kelly, 14 grandchildren and one great granddaughter. He was predeceased by brothers Herbert and Daniel.
Services: 11:00 am, Saturday, February 5th at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church, 1151 S. Cedar Crest Blvd., Allentown. Visitation 10 to 11 am Saturday in the church.
Interment at Grandview Cemetery.
Contributions: In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church or Baum Art School both in care of Stephens Funeral Home, Inc., 1335 Linden St. Allentown PA 18102.
When I was a toddler, my dad had some health issues, and in the fray of my family looking after him, I ended up staying with the Everetts for a time. The family was all very welcoming, and their lovely daughters were kind, patient and solicitous of me. The home of theirs that I recall was very contemporary and beautiful. When you came in the front door, there was a stone wall and water fountain and ivy, lit naturally by the sun through frosted glass brick. Even as a child, I could see this was a modern home very different than my own.
Lee's paintings are locally renowned and on several occasions the Allentown Morning Call newspaper called him "the dean of local watercolorists". Many area artists claim to have studied under his tutelage. Our family has one of his works in our living room, a lovely beach watercolor. Askart.com has a bio of Lee provided by John Dalles: "An artist and architect, Lee Everett works have been exhibited as recently as September 2005 at the Lehigh Carbon Community College. The college owns a collection of his watercolors, normally on display on walls all over campus. Everett won a Distinguished Building Award from the Pennsylvania Society of Architects for Allentown architectural firm H.F. Everett Associates' design of LCCC's Science-Technology building, now known as Science Hall. Despite a stroke in 1999, Everett, continued to paint from his home at an Allentown assisted living facility."
_____________________________________
The following article appeared in the Allentown newspaper in July 2005. It's a curiosity to note that the Ackermans mentioned in this piece now live in one of our family's "Romberger Homes" which used to belong to my great-aunt Amy. Those homes, envisioned by my great grandpa, were made real on paper by Lee's father's firm.
Stroke can't stop flow of Lee Everett's colors from the heart
In Room 118 of NewSeasons at MountainView, an assisted-care facility in Allentown, one of the deans of Lehigh Valley watercolorists paints with the wrong hand. Lee Everett moves a brush with his left fingers, which he trained himself to do after a stroke paralyzed his right side in April 1999. Working two to three hours most days at a drafting table, the 85-year-old former architect blocks out barns, shadows canyons, charges harbors with electric currents.
The painting would be mighty fine for anyone with both lobes in sync. It's pretty remarkable for someone whose right half is largely shut down. Everett, whose poor sight skews his color sense and keeps him from reading, simply refuses to retire his passion for watercoloring the world.
This tenacity will be celebrated Wednesday afternoon with an exhibition of Everett's recent watercolors at NewSeasons, where he's lived for six years. Mounted by the Baum School of Art, where Everett taught for eight years, the show of landscapes and seascapes is in an appropriately therapeutic setting. Before the stroke, Everett frequently donated works for auctions benefitting a host of hospitals, some of which (Allentown Hospital) he helped build, one of which (Good Shepherd) helped him recover from paralysis. He also served on a board that chose art for Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.
There was a time, in the 1980s and '90s, when Everett ran an art network. His watercolors were owned by Mack and GMC Diebert Trucks, the National Geographic Society and the Hiroshima Electric Co. Colleges, banks, restaurants -- they all had his paintings on the wall. The City of Allentown chose him to paint its official Christmas card. The Saucon Valley Country Club commissioned him to posterize its professional senior tournaments. Even Arnold Palmer was a client.
Whether painting a Pennsylvania farm, an Arizona desert or a Caribbean beach, Everett combined vivid color, a humming sense of place and harmonious composition. His superior drawing was guided by his blueprints for Everett Associates, a family architecture and engineering firm that built 470 schools, churches and other projects from 1946 to 1979. His careers overlapped during conferences of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Society of American Registered Architects, which annually presented one of his watercolors as a prize.
In 1979 Everett retired at 58, yearning to paint full time. "Architecture was his job," says his wife, Margie, a care manager for the Lehigh County Office of Aging. "Painting was his love."
In retirement Everett became a one-man art gang. He led painting workshops in the Philadelphia area and Florida. He judged shows, including an international for the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. He had more than a dozen solo shows. From 1976 to 1999 he won at least one prize every year.
Everett was a prolific teacher, too. At the Baum School he taught 320 students from 1978 to 1986. Some of his pupils -- Marylou Cummings, David Donnangelo, Nancy Hill -- became prominent painters.
"He was a wonderful teacher," says Marian Fetterman, who studied with Everett during his entire Baum School term. "He was very patient. He showed you what to do without painting on your work, so it stayed your work. There was quite a waiting list to study with him. And if he gave classes today, he'd still have a list."
Everett was an angel to the Baum School's Circulating Picture Club, which rents works to help civilize corporate spaces. In the 1970s he and Rudy Ackerman, the school's executive director, played an amusing game of cat and mouse. Ackerman visited Everett's house and offered to buy his works for the club. Everett initially declined the proposal, insisting he had nothing worth framing, let alone selling. Ignoring Everett's rejection, Ackerman removed watercolors from drawers, selected a few and convinced Everett they were worthy of purchase. Ackerman left with as many as 18 paintings, most of them freshly signed.
That's why the Baum School owns more than 75 Everetts. And that's how Everett helped boost the number of works in the Circulating Picture Club from around 200 in the '70s to more than 2,000 today.
"There's always a story connected with a Lee Everett watercolor," says Ackerman. "Even if there's no one in it, you could almost write a story."
The story changed dramatically when Everett suffered a stroke in April 1999. Margie Everett recalls seeing stroke-like symptoms two days earlier, when her husband struggled to find words during a videotaped acceptance speech for an Arts Ovation award from the Allentown Arts Commission. Paralysis prevented Everett from attending the ceremony that month.
Everett says he never considered abandoning painting, even when his doctor doubted he would paint again. According to Margie Everett, he refused to let paralysis kill his will. "Lee has always been more of a doer," she says, "than an observer."
Therapists helped Everett learn to zip a zipper and grip a brush. On his own he strained to train his right brain to do his left hand's bidding. In the fall of 1999 he completed his first post-stroke pictures with some of his pre-stroke depth and deftness. One picture was a duplication of a clipper ship from a magazine photo; another was an original portrait of a couple strolling a beach. He gave the latter to his wife as a gift.
Everett received an early vote of confidence from fellow Allentown native and watercolorist Jim Musselman, who recommended him for the 1999 Arts Ovation award. Impressed by Everett's left-hand watercolors, he exhibited eight of them during the 2000 ceremony.
Musselman believes Everett's stroke had one positive effect. It forced him to draw less like an architect, to paint nature more naturally. "We thought Lee had finally loosened up," says Musselman, speaking of local watercolorists. "I was astounded by how spontaneous his [left-hand] works were. They were little gems. It just proves that you don't have to stop working if you're disabled. You can do it if you put your mind to it."
Everett's disability changed his ability to paint. Before the stroke, he worked outdoors as much as possible, taking holiday art tours to France and the Fiji islands. Today, his studio is his small room at NewSeasons. He picks subjects from an index box crammed with photographs of meadow and desert, snow and sand. To focus his eye, he crops photos with masking tape. To steady his hand, he uses a smaller brush on smaller paper.
The watercolors are blockier and blurrier than Everett's meticulous pre-stroke works. Yet they're brighter and bolder. Arizona rocks are briskly shadowed with cobalt blue. The water in a Massachusetts harbor wriggles with electric-eel waves. The bark on a Pennsylvania tree streams with maypole hues. Once a realist, Everett has become an honorary impressionist.
Emotionally, Everett hovers between optimism and pessimism. Asked if he's happy with his left-hand works, he says no, shaking his head vigorously. Prodded by his wife, he grudgingly admits he still enjoys painting. He's proud of the pre-stroke works in his room, including a watercolor of fishing in Florida and an oil of boating in Massachusetts. Yet they're painful reminders of what's beyond his reach.
Everett's artist daughter, Jan DeChristopher, understands her father's frustration. "I think he knows what he wants to do but it doesn't always come out on paper," says DeChristopher, who creates acrylics and mixed-media pieces. "He loves nature but he can't paint outdoors because the bright light is so hard on his eyes. It's just so uninspiring to paint in that little room. If he were painting outdoors, I think that joy would come back."
Everett's friends are trying to keep him engaged and enthused. Last fall DeChristopher placed two of her father's works in the Parkland Art League exhibition. A pre-stroke oil and a post-stroke watercolor were displayed at the Jewish Community Center in Allentown, one of Everett's architecture projects. According to DeChristopher, her father enjoyed watching two people compete to buy the oil, a farm and mountain scene with warm purples and golds.
Everett's shaky right hand prevents him from using a walker. Yet he's a wheelchair whiz, propelling himself with a sneakered left foot. His left-hand grip is firm, his grin broad, his humor intact. Told that one of his stock sayings, "This is good," sounds like the Pennsylvania Dutch "This is goot," he laughs heartily, from the gut.
Everett's life, in short, is a watercolor: solid, opaque, transparent. "He's very positive and very courageous," says DeChristopher. "I'm just happy that he's painting. That's who he is; that's his soul."
______________________________________
I know more about the history of Lee's family's architectural firm than about his later life because of studying our family business, Romberger Cast Stone. That architectural firm had a long and prestigious history in Allentown, turning out beautiful homes, the oldest section of the Allentown Art Museum (formerly First Presbyterian Church), and a stunning private home at 1227 Hamilton built 1897 for industrialist George Ormrod which later was the home of Gen. Harry C. Trexler, and later the Trexler Trust. The firm also produced the plans for Charles Ziegenfuss' Victorian mansion at 16th and Hamilton, now the Burkholder Funeral Home. In 1888, Jacoby designed Allentown's Zion's Reformed Church, the church with the Liberty Bell. Also flowing from their drawing tables were the Breinig & Bachman office and the former Central Market Hall (built 1894, which was later the Lyric Theater) which has become Symphony Hall. The firm also designed for Bethlehem Steel Co., as well as Lehigh University's first science building and the Allentown Post Office. The Zollinger-Harned Building at 6th and Hamilton (on the National Register of Historic Places) was also one of their buildings. On their 1946 questionaire from the American Institute of Architects, they also cite Allentown State Hospital, Mahanoy Township High School, East Stroudsburg State Teachers College, Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown, and Arcadia Knitting Mills. Their 1953 questionaire included Parkland High School, Bensalem High School, Palisades High School, Gnadden Huetten Hospital, Van Sciver Furniture, Raub Junior High (1930), Harrison Junior High (later Harrison-Morton), and many more.
The firm was begun by Gustavus Adolphus Aschbach and Lewis Schelly Jacoby. After Aschbach's death in 1875, Jacoby worked solo while also serving as Allentown's municipal engineer. In Feb. of 1895, he partnered with S. Addison Weishampel, a Philadelphia architect and the firm became Jacoby & Weishampel. It later became Jacoby, Weishampel & Biggin when they were joined by Frederic C. Biggin of Bethlehem from 1899 to 1904. After Weishampel died in 1916, Jacoby continued solo until joined by Lee's father Herbert Furman Everett in 1919. After Jacoby died, the firm became H.F. Everett and Associates, with Robert Ochs, Warren Oswald and Paul Frankenfield. Herb's son Lee joined the company in 1946. The families of Ochs, Everetts and my Rombergers all had summer homes at Pine Run in Pennsylvania.
The 1953 principals of the company are all on FindAGrave. They include Herbert F. Everett, Robert E. Ochs, Warren H. Oswald, Paul T. Frankenfield, and Herb's son, our subject Lee Everett.
_____________________________________
Lee Everett, 91, died Tuesday, February 1, 2011. He was the husband of Marjorie (Duld) Everett the past 40 years and was the son of the late Herbert F. and Helen (Baker) Everett. He was a graduate of Allentown High School and the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture and served as a Navy lieutenant on a LST in the South Pacific during WWII. After the war he became a partner in the architectural firm of Everett Associates Architects and Engineers and designed many local schools and other buildings including Dieruff High School and the First Presbyterian Church in Allentown. Upon retirement he pursued his passion for watercolor painting and taught at the Baum Art School and was featured in many art exhibits and taught numerous workshops. He was a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Society, Lehigh Art Alliance and others. He was proud to be commissioned to paint the first annual Christmas card for the City of Allentown in 1988 and to receive the Arts Ovation Award in 1999. His talent extended to the piano, especially jazz, and he also enjoyed golf. He attended Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church.
Survivors: Besides his wife, he is survived by daughters, Jann, wife of Frank DeChristopher Jr. Susan Everett; Sally, wife of Richard Krznaric; Pamela, wife of Frank Ring; Cindy Kalmar and son Peter Everett, husband of Kelly, 14 grandchildren and one great granddaughter. He was predeceased by brothers Herbert and Daniel.
Services: 11:00 am, Saturday, February 5th at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church, 1151 S. Cedar Crest Blvd., Allentown. Visitation 10 to 11 am Saturday in the church.
Interment at Grandview Cemetery.
Contributions: In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church or Baum Art School both in care of Stephens Funeral Home, Inc., 1335 Linden St. Allentown PA 18102.
Family Members
Parents
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
