Elisabeth Louise Bastion Varese’s life was a long and an interesting one, her family wrote, recounting how she had been a Girl Scout in Puerto Rico in the 1930s, worked in New York and London, and earned her pilot’s license to fly “submarine watch” over the Gulf of Mexico during World War II.
Mrs. Varese, who was 101, died last Thursday in Florida.
A resident of East Hampton for 35 years before retiring to Lantana, Fla., around 1995, she had been a board member of the East Hampton Library. “Her stories about serving on the library board with famous authors and meeting celebrities at East Hampton charity banquets are the core of many family stories,” her family wrote.
Mrs. Varese was born in Port Arthur, Tex., on Nov. 14, 1922, to John Anthony Bastion and the former Virginia McCauley. She grew up in Puerto Rico, Texas, and London.
In 1951, she joined her older sister, Sue Thisler, in New York City, and worked in advertising for J. Walter Thompson, with tours in London.
She met Michael Varese, who was British, while in London, and they married there in 1965.
When she left the field of advertising, she co-founded the International Foodservice Editorial Council, and was a director for many years. Her husband, who had retired from banking, had over 300 columns published in The New York Times home section on antiques and wood.
Travel for work and pleasure took her to China, Russia, India, Borneo, and around Europe. When she stepped down from the I.F.E.C., “a grand party celebrated her years of service,” a friend wrote. Subsequently the organization’s award for going above and beyond in service was named “The Betty” in her honor.
She wrote and published two mystery novels, “No Just Desserts” in 2004 and “The Marigold Mafia” in 2009.
Her husband died in 2017. She is survived by her nieces and nephews, Gaynel Sue Dishon of Kansas City, Mo., John Thisler of Bend, Ore., and Page Johnson of New Hampshire.
Mrs. Varese was cremated. Her ashes are to be interred at the family plot in Springfield, Mo.
