Husband of Nova Scotia's most popular Folk Artist Maud Lewis, Everett worked as a fish peddler and night watchman at the Marshalltown Poor Farm. As Maud got older and her physical condition deteriorated and her hands got worse, her popularity grew and demands on her to produce work were at their greatest. to facilitate productivity, Everett got her to draw oxen on cardboard and cut out templates for her to use in her paintings. Later he made his own horse templates and began to paint. Some of his own work is part of the collection in the Gallery of Nova Scotia. Maude and Everett's small one room house in Digby was reconstructed and installed inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

Refuted to be a miser and a very practical man, Everett developed the ability to fold a five dollar bill into a flat one inch square which was the price of a Lewis painting. He kept it hidden in Mason jars. Then U.S. President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Robert Stanfield were among those who visited their home to buy a painting done by Maud. Everett continued to live in their little house after Maud's death in 1970. He was killed in 1980 in a scuffle with an intruder who broke into the house and tried to rob him.

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