Everel Alice Hunter (née Everington)

Everel Alice was the first-born child of Dr. H. D. Everington, a GP, and Muriel Frances Stone. She was born on 11^h October 1906 and named after an obscure actress (Everel) and after her beloved maternal grandmother (Alice).

She grew up with nannies and maids and, later, governesses and was joined by two brothers - Ted after about 6 years and Geoff after 10 years. She always had a great imagination and used to play tricks on her governesses and make up names and games. For instance, she devised a game of Happy Families and drew the characters, Mr and Mrs. Gammery and their children - she gave her mother the nickname ‘Gim’. She loved drawing and started in little notebooks at a very young age.

She was intelligent and loved reading and decided she would like to go to a proper school and so at the age of 15 she was sent to a girls’ boarding school, Eversleigh, on the south coast. She spent two years there. She particularly loved History and English but did not take the Matriculation exam as she was scared of the Maths teacher and did not find that subject easy. In those days young ladies did not need to pass exams!

She started to help her doctor father with his bookkeeping. When she was about 19, she travelled to London daily to attend the Byam Shaw Art School and began to produce some very good work in black and white and “The Bookman” sent her on several occasions to draw well-known people in their homes.

She met her future husband, a Scot called William Hunter, on a ‘blind date’ at a dance when she was about 30 and married him in 1937. In 1938 her beloved father died in a tragic road accident and she was devastated. Everel had two children: Jean Muriel (Jeannie) in 1940 and William Herbert in 1943 and after they married and had children she very much enjoyed and loved her grandchildren and was loved dearly by them.

In the 1950s Everel went back to the Byam Shaw Art School to study the technique of oil painting. She loved painting in oils and particularly enjoyed painting portraits. She enjoyed talking to her sitters and she exhibited in the Royal Academy in London twice and many times in the Salon, Paris and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, London. She received a silver and a gold medal from the Salon.

Everel was a committed Christian, always wanting to learn and understand more about Christianity and Jesus. She was interested in people and was a good and loyal friend; she also loved reading autobiographies and when she was tired in the evenings she found it relaxing to play the ‘Patience’ card games. When painting, she trained herself to take note of all the details of her subject and then she would spend many hours carrying on with the painting at home.

Her first husband, Bill, died in 1978 and in 1983 she married another Bill, the Rev. Bill Wood, a retired and widowed clergyman. She had first met him when he led the London Healing Mission, which had 1,000 intercessors praying in their homes for healing for those who had need of this. Everel died of cancer on July 25^th 1986 and is still very much missed by her family and all who knew her. She was a lovely, caring person with a unique talent. She was an ‘innocent’ and loved a joke.

Note: we have used the surnames Everington and Hunter throughout this site (even though Everel lived three years under the surname Wood) because Everel was only known for her art by the former two surnames.

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