By Jean Schurman
When she was 18 years old and just graduating from Victor High School, all Myna Anderson wanted to do was to marry her best friend and boyfriend, Buck Varner. They were married in July of 1961. She didn’t have plans to become a secretary, in fact had never taken any of the office classes such as shorthand and bookkeeping that were offered then. But she needed a job and so went to work at the law firm located at the corner of Third and Main in Hamilton.
Varner ended up working at the law firm for 49 years. She worked for Thomas Koch for many years and then, a few years after Lawrence Johnson came into the firm, she went to work for him. On June 1st, she will retire from the office after 49 years.
A few years after she first started working there, she took a few years off to raise her kids, Wendy and Jack. When she went back to work, she first worked at Farmers State Bank but then moved back to the law firm. She worked full time until about three years ago when Buck had a nasty run-in with a cow and came out on the short end of the fight. She had to be at home quite a bit to take care of his needs. That time off gave her a taste of retirement but it took her another three years to decide to make the step.
“I had a lot of patient bosses and the time to learn,” said Varner about her career. She said the advent of technology and computers has made the work less tedious. When she first started, she used an electric typewriter, carbon paper, and some sort of a copier that required a lot of fluid.
“When you typed out a will, you couldn’t have any typos,” said Varner. “If you had one, you had to do the entire document over. Now we just correct it and reprint it.”
Johnson said Varner’s reliability made it easy to work with her. “The teamwork between us made the job easier.”
Varner’s immediate plans are a trip to Indianapolis to see a niece graduate and tour the country a little. But she is content to be at her home west of Victor. She and Buck purchased the land from her parents and have lived there since 1965. She has a lush garden and lots of flowers. She says canning, gardening and perhaps even quilting will fill her days now.