Wendy Hackett Everett of Provincetown died on April 11, 2012 at the Cape Cod Hospital at age 85. Born in Washington D.C. to Chauncey and Mary Hackett, Wendy was raised in the ’30s and ’40s Provincetown, which flavored her life ever after. Wendy and her lifelong friends, sisters Nancy Whorf and Carol Whorf (Westcott), worked as teen apprentices in Peter Hunt’s workshop in the 1940s. In 1948, Wendy graduated from Swarthmore College as an English major, went to work in a decorative arts studio in New York, and later married Richard Everett. They moved from Queens to Chappaqua, New York, in 1956.
A confirmed West Ender, Wendy spent summers in the 50s and 60s at the family house on Nickerson Street and later at Ruth Hiebert’s Captain Jack’s Wharf. She loved spur of the moment off season visits, often staying with Jack and Adelaide Gregory at the “Oldest House.” In 1972 she returned with her son Toby to live in Town fulltime.
In the 1960s Wendy was a regular on the beach watching the spectacle at the West End Racing Club, often with her friend Rhoda Rossmore. After seeing a pen and ink drawing she had done showing one summer’s high jinks at the club, Larry Richmond enlisted her to do a new picture annually, which he mailed to families and friends in the depths of winter as a reminder of the spirited scene each summer: kids learning to sail, swim, braid gimp, drink Nemasket soda, and flirt, and adults practicing “going nowhere fast.” There was Francis John winning a race, Fred Hemley nearly capsizing, Wally O’Donnell by his dory, Donald Murphy gesticulating, Jim Ferreira and Ken Gregory with scuba gear, Larry fixing a rooftop wind gauge, and Dick Santos patching yet another damaged hull. For many years Wendy’s Christmas cards were single page calendars in pen and ink showing the months and days intertwined with familiar Provincetown images – the harbor at dusk, cleats, fish, gulls, waves, weir traps, fishermen, the monument, the A & P, and faces. In the winters Rhoda helped Wendy find old breadboxes and sundry other items in junk shops and antique shops, on which Wendy would paint Provincetown things, such as Perry’s Market, the Town Hall, the harbor, boats, fish, a local house, sometimes with a vibrant Peter Hunt flourish but likelier in a quiet, bemused fashion. Like her painter mother, Mary Hackett, Wendy’s pictures never failed to be personal, even when she was painting an inanimate object.
She served for many years on the zoning board of appeals, writing opinions that distilled legal issues in a plain, sensible and fair way. She relished the friendships that came with work on town boards and committees, including the art commission, the beautification committee, the re-greening committee, and the conservation trust. She worked at the Masthead for John and Valerie Ciluzzi, and later for Salvatore and Josephine Del Deo at Sal’s Place Restaurant, where her penchant for making a universe out of a small familiar world inspired her to keep a log with comments, drawings and doodles by her and a generation of irreverent restaurant workers.
Her years in Provincetown were filled with conversations with friends young and old, about people near and abroad, living and gone. Her kitchen table had a familiar feel for many, a scene of talk and conviviality. Longtime tenant and family friend Steve Toomey did sketches on all manner of paper scraps as others held forth. Wendy developed new friendships to the end, but especially loved old friendships that have the cast of a long, un-ending conversation. An inveterate letter writer, Wendy believed that letters could sometimes accomplish what conversation cannot. Her letters described people, feelings, and things, unhurriedly, carefully, and usually fondly. .
Wendy leaves her three sons, Timothy of West Hartford, CT and his wife Lucy Potter, Michael of Kent, CT and his wife Blythe Everett, and her youngest son, John Tobias (Toby, known on radio as the Old Guy) of Truro, seven grandchildren, David, Genevieve, Hazel, Sam, Maggie, Anna, and Gwen. She also leaves her youngest brother, Patrick Hackett of Berkeley, CA and his wife Lee, and other dear family members, and friends. Her brother, Tom (Truxton) Hackett, died last year.
A service in her memory was held on May 19, 2012 at 3 p.m. at Saint Mary of the Harbor in Provincetown.