Dr. Nell Celita Adele Blevins Varn

Dr. Nell Celita Adele Blevins Varn, 87, born on January 20, 1935, in Lake Marion, Florida, passed away peacefully in her sleep on October 20, 2022, in Arlington, Virginia. Beloved mother, wife, grandmother, great grandmother, passionate educator, lifelong student, artist, musician, and scientist, Celita was deeply loved by all who knew her.

Raised by her loving parents Dorothy and George Blevins and her beloved grandmother, Nellie Crosby in Plant City and Midway, Florida, Celita had a fondness for nature right from the start. She would share stories of roaming the acreage around her childhood home and her explorations of the plant and animal life around her that would seed the beginnings of her lifelong love of science and the wonder of nature. As a child, Celita showed great talent as a singer. Her voice was extraordinary, and her love of music was profound. She trained in both piano and voice as a child and would use those talents in everything she did throughout her life.

Celita’s mother was a home economics teacher at Brandon High school and her Father was the Superintendent of the Tampa Electric Company. She would attend Brandon High School where she met the love of her life, Frederick H. Varn in line at the pharmacy where they picked up prescriptions for his mother and her grandmother. At only 15 years old for Celita and 18 for Fred, they began a courtship that would span seven decades producing four daughters, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren and counting.

Celita and Fred were married at St. Peters Episcopal Church in Plant City Florida on May 16, 1953, after a three-year courtship while he was in the coast guard, and she was still at Brandon High. She would serve punch on her own at her high school prom after their May wedding then fly to sunny Puerto Rico to be with her love. Fred introduced her to everyone as his “child bride” and never stopped referring to her as such. They would reside by the beach in the Puerto Rican sun and sand for the first nine months of their marriage.

As a passionate lover of learning, Celita would graduate as the salutatorian of her high school class where she was also captain of the cheerleading squad. She attended the University of Florida for a year before moving with her husband, Fred, to the Washington DC Metro area where the career building opportunities were. They remained in northern Virginia, first in Alexandria and then in Arlington for the rest of her life.

A perennial student, Celita would earn two bachelor’s degrees from The George Washington University in Washington, DC in Botany and Biology with a minor in French. She would then earn her master’s degree also from GWU in Zoology. She went on to earn her doctorate in Administrative Education from The American University in Washington, DC in 1986. She did all of this while raising four daughters and dedicating her life to the education of others.

A natural born teacher, her life was all about education. She began her teaching career at George Washington Middle School in Alexandria, VA, teaching French. She would continue in Arlington where she taught for county schools for nearly 40 years. First at Stratford Middle School (now Dorothy Hamm), and then as a high school teacher at Washington - Lee High School (now Washington - Liberty) beginning in 1976 where all four of her daughters graduated from.

At Washington - Lee, she would write the advanced placement biology curriculum for Arlington County Schools, run the science fair for both W-L and at times, the county, and sponsor the class of 1986. She was also the first President for Arlington County Public Schools Teacher Curriculum Instruction Committee (TCI), created in the 1980’s. She taught Biology & occasionally Chemistry, Physics and French at W-L until her retirement in 1997. She also served as a liaison between W-L for The Virginia Junior Academy of Sciences, attending and judging state science fairs. In her later years of teaching, she also worked at The National Institutes of Health as a researcher of the effects of vitamin C on cellular biology during the summer. Her teaching style was memorable and fun. She would use creative visuals and often broke out into song during lectures to anchor learning and just have fun and connect with her students.

After her retirement in 1997, It was nearly impossible to leave the house without running into one of her former students. They would routinely gush to anyone present that she was the best teacher that they ever had. She loved the impact she had on her students remaining ever supportive of their endeavors. In her last years at W-L, she taught French, Physics, and Chemistry, exercising her vast knowledge of subjects that she loved.

Celita attended St. George’s Episcopal Church in Arlington for more than six decades. Her spiritual life was very important to her. She served on the altar guild, the worship committee, as a Sunday school teacher, and as a trusted and well-loved parishioner. She was a huge supporter of the beautiful floral arrangements made for the altar each week. In her last couple of years, Celita and Fred donated space in their backyard to grow flowers for the altar at St. George’s.

Of the many roles that Celita played in her life, none were more important to her than that of being wife, mother, and grandmother. She adored her daughters, making sure they were well rounded. She taught and encouraged them to try everything they were interested in from playing instruments, to learning languages, to gardening, taking ballet, singing, swim lessons, rowing crew, playing softball, painting & drawing, gymnastics, theater, cooking, caring for the home, and even sewing their own clothes. She made sure her daughters were self-sufficient in every way. She had an attitude that exuded the ideal that women could do anything and are best served in learning everything that would create the most possibilities for a full life.

In their retirement, Celita and Fred purchased a large recreational vehicle often referred to as their condo on wheels. They would travel to the Eastern Shore for shorter trips, winter in South Padre Island, Texas, visit their daughters in Houston & South Carolina, and they even made a trip to California to Visit their nieces and nephews. They often took Celita’s best friend, Rebecca Hayes who had been an integral part of her life and family since they met at GWU as lab partners in the mid 1950’s.

Classes in painting, Italian, Criminal Justice, and tap dancing, continued even after her retirement where she developed herself more as an artist, linguist, dancer, and fed her fascination with the minds of criminals and the system that prosecutes them. She also loved crime shows from Eliot Ness to NCIS, she could be found on her sofa engrossed in these TV stories that intrigued her. She also continued to work as a substitute teacher for Arlington County Schools when not traveling in their RV or on their treasured trips to France where she happily shared her fluency in French and her deep love of the culture.

Music was one of the greatest joys of her life. Celita was quite possibly the biggest fan that Billy Joel ever had. She would listen to his music nearly daily or play it on her hand carved baby grand piano. She attended many of his concerts with family and friends over the course of many years. Her beautiful operatic voice would fill the house as she listened to vinyl recordings of Tosca or La Traviata or her favorite French singers, Edith Piaf or Yves Montand. As a lifelong Episcopalian, she would turn heads in church every Sunday as she sang out hymns using her natural vibrato voice. She also loved the Rolling Stones, Huey Lewis, Rod Stewart, Jim Croce, The Beach Boys, and just about anything you could dance or sing to.

The beach was one of the greatest places for exploration, solace, and peace for Celita. She would comb the sands searching for the perfect shells and wade into the water where she would collect all kinds of sea life specimens and plants to observe and study. She also loved to roam the woods looking for lichen, moss, crayfish, or anything interesting the trees would offer.

As a master gardener, Celita would plant organic produce along the entire perimeter of their Arlington backyard. Her gardens would yield impressive amounts of fresh vegetables and fruits. She would make delicious dinners for the family and preserves from their grape vine, peach, and cherry trees. She loved to cook for her family and happily fed friends and neighbors with her delicious dinners.

Reliable, solid, loyal, and loving, Celita possessed such great humility that you may not have known how incredibly brilliant she was unless you sat with her for an in-depth conversation. She had an infectious sense of wonder that extended to all children, animals, nature, and life in general. A dog, cat, or baby would send her over the moon with excitement. She never lost her child like joy and excitement for life. If you were fortunate to know her, you would have felt cared for and seen by her. She had a genuine interest in others around her that left people that knew her feeling truly accepted and loved.

Celita is survived by her husband of 69 years, Frederick H. Varn; her daughter Dorothy Grosz and her Husband Michael Grosz of Corpus Christie, Texas, and their three sons, Thomas and his wife Amanda Lamb and their two children Piper and Brooks; Michael Grosz, Jr. and his wife Amber, and his children, Meredith Dalton and Alexis Grosz, and Gregory and Candace Grosz and their children Avery and Mason; her daughter Pauline Brubeck and her husband Douglas Brubeck of Herndon, Virginia; her daughter Margaret V. Haworth of Los Angeles, California; her daughter Rebecca Pettinelli and her husband James Pettinelli of Ashburn, Virginia and their children Madeleine Krause and her husband Gage Wampler, and their son Charles Pettinelli. Celita was the warm and wonderful center of the family who will be deeply and dearly missed.

A memorial service will be held for Celita on November 12, 2022, at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA at 11 o’clock in the morning.