Elenora Varney

Elenora Varney, born Elenora Kelly Seay, died of natural causes in Nashville on Friday, Jan. 21, 2011. Born on a farm near Lebanon, Tenn., on Apr. 15, 1918, she graduated from George Peabody College for Teachers in 1940. In 1941, she married Victor Beverly Varney, of Williamson, W.V., as he was beginning his service as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the United States Navy. Vic, known as "Jug" in football circles, had previously been a Little All-America football player at Morehead State Teachers College, where they met. They were happily married until his death in 1974.Mrs. Varney moved from Cartersville, Ga., to Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1953, when Vic was named head football coach of Chattanooga High School. She was chief dietician at Moccasin Bend Psychiatric Hospital from its inception in the early 1960's until her retirement in 1975. Known for her effusive hospitality, great cooking skills and as an outspoken advocate of Civil Rights, she also had a deep love of literature and was an accomplished writer of light verse. From 1964 until she moved to Nashville in 2000 she was a devoted member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga. She spent the last years of her life in the loving care of her friends in the HealthCare Center at West Meade Place, to whom her family will always be grateful.She is survived by two sisters, Frances (Shields) Wilson, of Chattanooga, and Nancy (Bob) Miller, of Augusta, Ga.; her two children, Katy Varney (Dave) Goetz, of Nashville, and Danny "Vic" Varney, of New York City; and two grandchildren, Kathleen and Vic Goetz, of Nashville. (Her twin, Ann Peck, of Coral Gables, Fla., and brother, Judge Dan Seay, of Lebanon, died a number of years ago.) Visitation will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m. and funeral services at 10:30 a.m.,at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Pine Street, Chattanooga. The family requests donations to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in lieu of flowers.