Brother Charles Stetson Varian was born in Dayton, Ohio, September 10, 1846, and died in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 25, 1922.

At the age of twenty, he came to California, and in the following spring to Nevada, where he resided for sixteen years, coming finally to Utah in 1883. He and his law partner, W. H. Dickson, opened an office in March, of the previous year, at which time his partner took charge of the Salt Lake office.

For nearly forty years, Brother Varian was a resident of Salt Lake City. He came to Utah in the very prime of his early and vigorous manhood, and from the first took a position in the front rank of the legal profession. Admitted to the bar in 1871, he served in Nevada, as county clerk, county treasurer, member of the State Assembly—of which he was Speaker—and State Senator. In addition he had been United States Attorney for Nevada, having received appointment to that office at the hands of three Presidents: Grant, Hayes and Garfield.

Those were stirring times in which Brother Varian became a resident of the Bee Hive
State. The Edmunds law was placed on the Statute Books in 1882, and in March, following Brother Varian’s arrival in Salt Lake City, his partner was made United States Attorney, The Mormon Church, through its leaders, and the Federal Government had finally come to close grips in the matter of enforcement of , and obedience to law. For twenty years and more the people had been taught, by precept and example, that the law of 1862, relating to polygamy, was unconstitutional and might and should be ignored. Then came the Poland Law of 1874, and the Edmunds Law of 1882, which had put “teeth” into previous congressional enactments, and the storm was on. Into this seething turmoil Brother Varian came and soon as chief assistant to the United States Attorney, and later as occupying that position himself, he had a large share in shaping events which finally bore fruit in statehood.

Much of a most interesting character concerning this period of our Brother’s life could be written, did space permit.

Brother Varian had looked forward with keen anticipation to the Grand Lodge Communication of 1922 and the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the organization of that body, but failing health kept him at home, His thoughts, however, was with the Brethren and he sent them a heartening message which was to be his last from the sick room, two sentences of which read:

“I send to you from the sick room, my love and congratulations upon this Fiftieth Annual Communication of your Grand Body. For months past it has been one of my most delightful anticipations that I should be able to meet you upon this memorial occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of our Grand Lodge.” He closed his message of greeting with Tennyson’s exquisite “Crossing the Bar,” the last verse of which seemed so exactly to express his forward look and belief:
“For through from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.”

Concerning him, an editorial writer in the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE declared that in his passing, “City and State, and the West are bereft of one of the most public-spirited citizens and brilliant legal minds of the intermountain region in the last thirty years. Modest and unassuming in a marked degree, yet ever fortified by a highly trained and intellect and lofty ideals of conduct, Mr. Varian busied himself little with the petty and non-essentials of life, dwelling in a realm of thought and activity that made for the enduring things.”

Brother Varian married, while still in Nevada, Miss Florence Guthrie, the date being July 30, 1872. Three sons came to bless this union.

He was made a Mason in Winnemucca Lodge No. 19, Winnemucca, Nevada, April 17, 1875, and affiliated with Argenta Lodge No. 3, April 5, 1887. Of this Lodge he was Senior Warden in 1888, and Worshipful Master in 1889.

He was made a Royal Arch Mason in Reno Chapter No. 7, Reno, Nevada, December 21, 1881, and later dimitted to Utah Chapter No. 1, R. A. M., Salt Lake City.

The Commandery Degrees he received in DeWitt Clinton Commandery No. 1, Virginia City, Nevada, June 25, 1882, and later transferred his membership to Utah Commandery No. 1, K. T., Salt Lake City, Utah.
In the Grand Lodge of Utah, Brother Varian was Grand Orator in 1889, and again in 1903. He was elected Senior Grand Warden in 1888, Deputy Grand Master in 1904, and Grand Master, January 18, 1905. During his term of office as Grand Master, he had the privilege of laying the corner-stone of the Ogden and Salt Lake Masonic Temples.

He was a member of the Jurisprudence Committee in 1891, and 1893, and in1910 he was appointed by Grand Master C. B. Jack to membership on this most important of Committees and continued to serve Grand Lodge in that capacity till the end came.

The printed Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Utah afford abundant evidence of the character and virility of his well stored mind in the addresses delivered by him on various occasions during the last thirty years. Among these might be mentioned, as indication the range and versatility of his talents, the address given at the laying of the corner-stone of the M. E. Church, Ogden; that delivered at the joint meeting of the Salt Lake Lodges in commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of Brother George Washington, and that given before the Lodge of Sorrow, Salt Lake City, Utah December 13, 1903.

A full life was his, coming at last to the end, “like a full shock of corn in its season.”