WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—Dr. William H. Everett died on June 14, 2014 at the Vermont Veterans Home, surrounded by his family.
Dr. Everett was born in New York, N.Y. on May 30, 1930, the son of Percy R. Everett, a certified public accountant at Haskins & Sells, and Eva Stuart Everett. He was named after his paternal grandfather, William Henry Everett, who worked for Thomas Cook & Son in London. He grew up in Larchmont, N.Y. where he graduated from Mamaroneck High School in 1947. Dr. Everett received his B.A. in Biology at Williams College, graduating magna cum laude in 1951. He was junior Phi Beta Kappa, and elected president of the society for his senior year. At Williams, he sang in the college choir for four years and took frequent trips to New York to see, among others, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Charlie Parker.
Dr. Everett’s first job was delivering prescriptions on his bicycle for the local pharmacy in Larchmont during the early years of World War II, a war he was acutely aware of given that his father’s family was located in the London area and endured almost nightly bombing. He also had jobs setting up pins in a bowling alley and sanding down the hulls of racing sailboats at Larchmont Yacht Club, the beginning of his lifelong interest in sailing. As a teenager, he worked on the Lake Champlain waterfront at the Basin Harbor Club in Vergennes, Vermont.
Dr. Everett attended medical school at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons, graduating in 1955. He did his internship and first year of residency at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York and was then drafted into the United States Air Force and sent to Japan, where he served for two years as an internist at the USAF Hospital in Tachikawa, outside of Tokyo. During his stay in Japan, he earned his private pilot’s license and logged 80 hours of flying time, including flights over local volcanoes and Mt. Fuji. Also in Japan, Everett developed strong interests in photography and travel, taking trips to many countries in Southeast Asia. His two children were born in Tachikawa.
On his return to the United States, Dr. Everett moved with his family to Candlewood Lake in Brookfield, Connecticut, and completed his medical training at Grace-New Haven Hospital and Hartford Hospital. In 1961, he became the third internist at the newly formed Williamstown Medical Associates, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he practiced for years, dedicated to his patients and to the enhancement of the practice of medicine in the northern Berkshires. He retired in 1985 due to the recurrence of a chronic illness that had begun in Japan. For many years, Dr. Everett was chair of the Department of Medicine and director of the Coronary Care Unit and Department of Electrocardiography at the North Adams Regional Hospital. During his years as a physician, he was the Corporate Medical Director for Sprague Electric Company and a Senior Aviation Medical Examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration. He was on the Executive Committee of the Postgraduate Medical Institute in Boston and organized monthly educational meetings at North Adams Regional Hospital that brought medical experts from Massachusetts General Hospital to North Adams. He was also co-owner of Turboprop International for 10 years, the former Sprague Aviation.
Dr. Everett was President of the Board of the Williamstown Theatre Festival from 1976 to 1994, where he worked closely with Nikos Psacharopoulos and Peter Hunt. One of the most enjoyable parts of his life outside of his devotion to the practice of medicine was his involvement with the theatre. In his first year as president, he met Gintare Sileika, who had come to Williamstown from New York City to be general manager of the festival; they were married in 1980. Upon completion of his presidency, the festival’s trustees conferred on him the title of president emeritus and established a scholarship fund in his name for summer apprentices chosen from auditions at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Everett is survived by his wife, Gintare Sileika Everett, and his two children, Patricia Everett, of Amherst, Massachusetts and James Everett, of Chapin, South Carolina, and his wife Helene Juliany Everett, along with his three grandchildren, Zael and Django Ellenhorn and Kevin Everett.
To his children, he taught the joys of sailing, photography, generosity, and a deep engagement with life and the lives of others. And to his grandchildren, who brightened his life tremendously, he showed profound interest in their lives, asking about and remembering the details until the very end. His children are deeply and forever grateful to Gintare for her loving and dedicated care of their father for all these years and for the joy she brought to his life. Burial will be private, in the family plot in Rhinebeck, New York. A memorial service in Williamstown will be held at a later date to be announced. The Flynn & Dagnoli-Montagna Home for Funerals, 74 Marshall St. North Adams, Ma. are in charge of arrangements.

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