Rodebaugh, Everett G.: 7/1983

Everett G. Rodebaugh, 81, who founded a court-reporting service in Philadelphia and was a nationally prominent court reporter, died Monday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He lived at Welkinweir, a 162- acre estate in East Nantmeal Township, Chester County.

 

President of Court Reporters Inc. and Shorthand Service Inc., he directed for 54 years the staffs in recording trial testimony, governmental hearings, contract negotiations and arbitration sessions throughout the Philadelphia area.

 

His reporters also took down every word in meetings of shareholders of companies such as General Motors, the Sun Co., Du Pont Co., UGI and Arco.

 

They also recorded meetings of a number of private organizations such as the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

 

The work permitted Mr. Rodebaugh to live well and to pursue his interests, which included environmental matters, historical restoration and preservation, collecting books and antiques, music, horticulture, conservation, travel and photography.

 

Mr. Rodebaugh was the first president of the Green Valleys Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and subsequently was named the organization's ''permanent honorary president."

 

Past chairman of the Chester County Water Resources Authority, he was a past president of the Pennsylvania Forestry Association.

 

He was a founder of the Countrymen's Club, a member of the Quaker City Farmers' Club, and was active in the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture and the Men's Garden Club of the Delaware Valley.

 

His travels took him around the world 15 times and furnished background for his writing.

 

His articles appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, the American Bar Association Journal, the Pennsylvania Bar Association Quarterly, the Practical Lawyer, Case & Comment.

 

He was active in a number of organizations in the field. He was past chairman of the Conference of United States Court Reporters and past president of the National Shorthand Reporters Association.

 

An accomplished raconteur, Mr. Rodebaugh was well known as a host and his estate became a major social center over the years.

 

In November 1976, Mr. Rodebaugh and his wife, Grace Haspel Rodebaugh, gave their estate - a 100-acre arboretum, 50 acres of landscaped lawn, a six-acre lake and a half-dozen ponds scattered through surrounding hills - to West Chester State College.

 

The gift was conditioned on life tenancy for the couple. However, the legislature in 1979 cut funding for the estate's maintenance. As a result, the Rodebaughs then presented the estate to the University of Pennsylvania for a conference center.

 

Mr. Rodebaugh, a 1922 graduate of Penn, was pleased by the shift. Based on a large gift to Penn, a new medical facility on Penn's campus was dedicated last year as the Grace and Everett Rodebaugh Clinical Center for Diabetes Research and Education.

 

The Rodebaughs' life at Welkinweir was clouded by a robbery there Feb. 29, 1980. Their home, part of which dates to 1750, was invaded by two thieves, a guest was injured, and a collection of silver valued at $250,000 stolen. Subsequently, a house guest, Amy Marlene Darow, pleaded no contest to charges in connection with her involvement in a conspiracy with another woman and a man to rob the Rodebaughs.

 

Mr. Rodebaugh is survived by his wife and two sisters.

 

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at the Nantmeal United Methodist Church, Nantmeal Village.1