Beverley Varey

Interviewed by Greg Nesteroff in Castlegar on September 15, 2005

Beverley Varey (nee Brown) in Sandon in 1948. (Courtesy Beverley Varey)

How did you come to Sandon? Saw an ad in the paper after I graduated from high school that year [1948]. I didn’t know where I was going. That’s where I ended up.

You went to work in the Reco Hotel? Yes. The other girl in these pictures is Helen, a girl from high school. I phoned her and got her to come up and do the rooms. I did the cooking.

Who else was there when you arrived? All these pictures of these young guys are all university kids who were staying in the hotel or in one of the bunkhouses, either doing exploration work, or, this one here, he wasn’t behaving himself at home, and his dad brought him up there! Now he’s some sort of movie star in the States someplace. I was only 18, that’s why I only have pictures of guys. [Laughs]

What was your first impression of Johnny and Alma? I was quite nervous. It was my first job out of high school. Took off from home. They were very stand-offish. Both very business-only. Alma got so she was very fond of me. But she disciplined me too.

So was it strictly an employer-employee relationship you had with them? Everybody knew everybody. She was kind of like an old biddy in a way. But she was good to me. After I was gone 25 years or more, 30 years, and went back, I stayed with her in her home [in August 1981].

Had you kept in touch with her?

Maybe about four years before that I started going back.

And what about Johnny? He was, they were okay. I never had any problems with them. I never got fired.

Did you talk to him much? Yes, but not about his past.

Some people told me he always kept his back to the wall. Did you ever notice that? No. I didn’t notice. People were always around.

Did you ever hear a story that he’d shot someone in Idaho? No.

Did you ever hear a rumour he changed his name? No. But that didn’t have anything to do with me.

Did his relatives ever come to visit when you were there? No.

Were any of the internees still there when you came? No, they were all gone.

You were there a year? Not quite. Because when Alma went to the Prairies, I didn’t want to stay there with Johnny. I don’t know why. She didn’t go very long, though. She wouldn’t stay that long away from Teddy [Kleim]. She didn’t take him with her.

Also, by that time Eugene [Petersen] enters the picture. Him and I were engaged. I was going to marry him. Here’s the story that I wrote for him. I had been a writer. So Gene had saved all these bits of paper up and was going to make a book.

Mona Lingard was Gene’s girlfriend. She got really mad when I came up to visit him. I stayed with him, but I wasn’t shacking up with him. She phoned about every hour all the time when I was visiting him. [Laughs]

But then you did get engaged. Yes, I still wear his diamonds.

And he never did marry. No. He would have married me, even before I married Larry [Varey]. But I don’t know, I don’t know why things went the way they did.

Did Larry steal you away from him, or did you not meet for a while? Oh, no, I knew him …

Larry: We’ve known each other for a long time.

Beverley: I knew him since I was the same age, around the same age.

How long have you two been married? Nineteen years.

Part of this book is mine, Window in the Mountain, by Gene Petersen. This is what I typed from his scraps of paper.

So you ghost wrote it, basically. Yes. I didn’t put my name on it. I thought Gene would if he wanted to … After I wrote the story, I gave the book to Alma to read it through. These are all her corrections.

When the flood came, she was away. When she came back, Teddy had built an apartment in one of the other buildings.

The Virginia block? Yes. She lived there for a while. And then they decided to move to Silverton. And we were there every year, from then on. We’d go down in our motorhome. Last time we went, Teddy was gone. The year before he said goodbye, I’m going to die this year.

How long had Teddy and Alma been together? Before I came in the picture! I don’t know. He was supposed to be the hired man. She was so jealous. That’s one thing she was. One day — see, Helen played the accordion. We were only 18. Hadn’t turned 19 yet. She got the accordion out and we were upstairs in the hotel, in the big lobby, and Teddy came up and said let’s dance. I said sure. So we’re doing the schottische, and all these old dances. And Alma came up, she was just livid! Not because we were dancing, but because I was dancing with Teddy.

What did Johnny make of that? I don’t know if he was there. They had separate rooms.

How did Johnny and Alma get along? They got along. I could hear them yelling and fighting at times, but I wasn’t interested in that stuff.

They had pets? He had two dogs, Reco, and whatever — he called his dog Reco, he had the Reco mine, and the Reco Hotel. And she had two cats, Loveydove and Honeybunch.

Did you stay in touch with Eugene? He lived there right up to his death? Yes, but with Mona a lot. They bought a house in Kaslo. I went and helped him with some wood.

How many people were living in Sandon when you were there? I don’t know. They were all transient …

What kind of shape was the Reco Hotel in? It was okay. In the kitchen, for a stove, there was a great big brick thing. There was also an electric stove with three or four burners. I used that all the time. I didn’t know how to get this [other] thing going. I think Teddy got it going when it started getting going.

The bar wasn’t being used in those days, was it? No. [Johnny] wouldn’t sell liquor. I don’t remember there being a bar.

The dining room was downstairs, one big long table, and behind that the kitchen. A big pot-bellied stove in here. The lounge on this side. A staircase here. Another staircase here, going up to a big opening, like a lobby. All the rooms were around this.

Did they still have their old fixtures, or had they been modernized? No, we had a basin, and a jug, and a potty under the bed. My room was here and Helen’s was next door. Then there was another one. This one here was always kept for people that used to bring vegetables and stuff. A man and his son.

On this side, Alma had a nice, big, grand room. Alma moved out of that, Johnny took it, and Alma slept in the room next door. Teddy’s room was on that side too. Through here was a store. This was the post office.

Was Alma the postmaster when you were there? Yes. And when she was on holidays, I was doing it. I don’t know if I did it right or not!

How much mail was there? Oh, not very much.

This says “Alma doesn’t like to go to Sandon to see the town now, though she stills owns the land where the Reco Hotel once stood.” I got her to come up with me one day to go to the museum which at that time was in the little house on the other side of the municipal hall. When I was there, a couple were living there. He [John Oxley] was a foreman or something in one of the mines. We were hunting one day, Eugene and I, and that couple and we went back to their place and had venison steaks.

What brought Teddy to Sandon? Alma. I guess he came from the farm where Alma lived. I’m pretty sure of that.

What did you do for recreation? Run around with Gene! [Laughs]

What did he do, take you up to the mines? Yes, went up and worked on his mine on my day off.

What kind of hours were you putting in at the hotel? I had to make all three meals, and then I’d have one day off a week.

Did you live in the hotel? Yes.

What happened to Gene’s stuff? Does his sister have it? I think so. And the house is still intact. All the furniture and everything.

Larry: Some of the memorabilia outside has been taken, we noticed.

You mean the things on the shed? Beverley: Yes … This was Gene’s trail buggy.

He built that himself, didn’t he? Yes. And Teddy had one too. He had two seats on it, and I used to go on the back of that. We’d go way up into the mountains. We used to go hunting. Never got anything. He made me carry the pack because he was carrying the rifle. I was so small.

(Looking at a picture of the crooked Miners’ Union Hall.) I was on the back of the trail buggy — no, I was driving it. [Gene] was teaching me to drive it, and I smashed into the building and bent the frame.

The old car. Everybody who worked in Sandon, all the young guys staying in the bunkhouses, they’d always go over and look in the windows. Everybody asked Alma for that car. She never even drove it. Never while I was there. Teddy had a car.

So it just sat? Yes, on blocks.

I got a chair [from the Reco Hotel]. It’s in my ex-husband’s house. I’ve asked him for it.

When did you get it? I knew another lady who had been in Sandon and bought a lot of stuff, including this chair. It had wooden arms. Quite a high back. A wicker seat. It was high because she used it for looking out when she did the mail. [She was a] postlady. I told Teddy and Alma that I had it.

There was a jeep there. I don’t see the jeep there anymore. It was still working. The jeep was 1940s or ‘50. Because Gene asked me to go to the jeep dealer and get all the brochures and mail them to him. And I did. That’s when he

bought his jeep. We went up the mountain in it.

It’s pretty nice that Larry would even go back there, because he knew Gene and I were going to be married.

How long after you met Gene did you get engaged? After I left Sandon, I went to Kaslo and worked there for one month. I got fired. I was used to cooking big family meals. I wasn’t used to short order. I would get so muddled up.

Was that at the King George? Yes. There was a restaurant across the street from the hotel. The man in there hired me. About that time Gene showed up, he came over to see me. He’s going to Nelson. So I said “I’m going to come with you.” We go to Nelson. Always separate rooms. We stayed in the hotel and he went out and bought my engagement ring there. He bought me a wristwatch and a black suitcase that I will never give up! [Laughs] It’s all rotten and stinks. It was a real leather suitcase that’s gone moldy. I haven’t got the watch. That’s all that’s left of anything Gene and I did. I sent him a couple of things that I thought he needed for the house. He couldn’t live in the house. He was living in what they called Snoose’s cabin, up on the hill, when I was there. A lady whose husband was in the mine renting Gene’s little house. After she was going to move out, that’s when he was going to move in. He was working in the mine nearly all winter.

I liked going up there and mucking around, breaking rocks. I wasn’t much of a lady, I was more of a tomboy.

Where did you go after Kaslo? I went to Vancouver, where I grew up. Went back and lived with my dad for a while.

[ …]

Do you know Bill Barlee? Yes. Gene wasn’t happy with him. He came into the town and took a lot of stuff.

Larry: He got cheezed off at the whole situation, after working on it himself.

Beverley: He used to go all winter shoveling all those buildings. Even the people that owned them didn’t pay him or say thank you.

[ … ]

Larry: We sit in the hot tubs at Nakusp and Ainsworth and people start talking about oh, they went to Sandon. The stories you get are rather comical when you know the history, [compared] to what they’re saying.

Beverley: Yeah, I say “I used to live there.”

[ … ]

You worked in newspapers? Yes, I was a women’s editor and an advertising manager. First of all, I was 20 years with the Campbell River Mirror. Then I was at the Courier Islander. They laid me off because of slack times. But the advertising manager was a very lazy guy. We could have done promotions, we could have gone out and really worked, but he didn’t want to do that. Then I went [back] to the Mirror, and studied a real estate course. After that, I did two years in real estate. I didn’t like it. Too much backstabbing and people being mean to each other. I couldn’t do that. People losing their homes, and you’re still taking your commission. I was always giving my commission back, and my boss didn’t like that. He said “Beverley, you worked for that, you get it.” I said I don’t really need it as much as they do. The month I quit I made $4,000 and everybody said “You’re crazy!” I said I don’t like it. I don’t need $4,000. That was my commission for one sale.

Then the manager of the Green Sheet out of Courtenay, with the Comox Free Press, he phoned me up. He needed somebody for a month because a girl broke her leg. So I went down and did that, and just as that was finishing, he also had a freebie paper, and the guy who was running that was quitting. So the manager asked me to take it over. So I did, until Larry and I got married.

When I graduated from high school, our counsellors called us in to have a talk with us. What are you going to do, Beverley? I said, “I am going to be a gypsy!” [Laughs] Oh, she looked at me and said “That’s no way to talk!” I said that’s what I’m going to be. I’m going to wander. And I sure did. But always had a job.

When you saw the ad for the job in Sandon, did you write a letter applying? Yes, I wrote a letter and told them I’m just graduating from high school. I gave a letter of recommendation from my counsellor — my gypsy counsellor. I maybe got one from my teacher too. And then another girl who was doing the same course as me, she just wanted to work for a little while. That’s Helen.

What happened to her? She went to Edmonton. She was an accordion teacher. A few years ago, she phoned me up after moving out to Black Creek. She’s a minister in the Jehovah’s Witnesses! What a change.

[ … ]

I had a claim in Dawson City, on Hunker Creek. I had to have $200 worth of work done every year.

Did Sandon get you interested in mining? Did you have any interest in it before? Not really. I was in school then. I was going to be a chef. I took a specialty at VanTech as a chef, and went to Sandon on my first job. Couldn’t cook, but I got by. Had enough books with me. At school you didn’t really learn how to be a cook. And Alma helped me, because she got tired of eating the horrible food I was putting out! It was too hard to find anybody to go and live in a place like that.

Who did you replace at the hotel? A Japanese girl. Gene and this cook in one of the bunkhouses took me over to the hotel in Kaslo. They knew that this lady was now working in the hospital. Don’t remember her name. But we went up to talk to her.

Do you know who replaced you? No, but we were in the swimming pool at Nakusp and somebody started talking about Sandon. I said I used to live and work there. He said oh, what did you do? I said I was the cook in the Reco Hotel in ‘48-49. He said “My mother cooked in there in 1950.” But we didn’t have much more time to talk about it. He told me the name, but I don’t know it.

Bev Varey’s obituary:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/beverley-varey-obituary?id=24425958