Russell and sigurd varian

(1898-1959) (1901-1961)

Electronics laboratories do not usually manufacture blackberry jam. But when the first official visitor arrived at the newly-founded Varian Associates in August 1948 he found the jam pot merrily bubbling on an electric cooker and sterilized jars waiting to be filled. The Varian brothers, Russell and Sigurd, already had a reputation for their invention and development of the klystron and they were known to do things in unusual ways.

The visitor, a government official sent to survey the company's facilities, later said that he would not have been surprised if the jam making had been one of Russell's experiments. The truth was more prosaic. Sigurd's wife, Winnie, did not want to waste a good harvest of blackberries.

About Christmas, the same official received a jar of jam through the post, the last of Varian Associates' first product line. Sorry, he was told, but re-orders could not be accepted though they would be happy to discuss any requirements for klystrons or travelling-wave tubes.

So began the corporate life of Varian Associates, an international company now just over 50 years old and long famous for its klystrons which are used in such diverse applications as television broadcasting, defence, medicine and industrial production. Like the Cavity magnetron, the klystron as a device of high power and high frequency came along at the right time to help the Allied cause in the Second World War.

Childhood

Ever since childhood Russell had made inventions and Sigurd had built them. As adults they went their separate ways but were united by strong family ties; Russell struggled to follow an academic career, Sigurd became a dare-devil pilot. Throughout, however, both dreamed and made inventions with Sigurd never losing faith that one day Russell would invent "the big one" which would put them on the path to riches and independence. Eventually, he did.

Russell Harrison Varian was the eldest son of John Varian and his Australian-born wife, Agnes. It was Agnes who bonded the family together. John and Agnes emigrated to America from Dublin before the turn of the century ¹ and settled first in California before moving to Washington DC, where Russell was born on April 24,1898.

From Washington they moved to Syracuse, New York, and Sigurd was born there on May 4, 1901. John suffered from asthma and bronchitis and the family's fortunes went up and down². After four years on the East Coast John lost his job and for a while it looked as if the children would have to be cared for³ by Agnes's sister. Friends and relatives persuaded them back to California where they settled in Palo Alto in 1902. It was there that their third son, Eric, was born on June 16,1904.

An elderly aunt provided a house, John became a masseur, and life improved. The boys developed a healthy outdoor life-style and the usual indoor one too, as a letter from their mother reveals: "When I got home from San Jose the boys had the house as if a cyclone had gone through it, leaving the dirt from the entire neighbourhood. They had taken it into their heads to make doughnuts and spilt grease all over the floor in great patches, had pillow fights in the parlor and generally played Old Harry." Training the family dog to pull them along on roller skates was another indication of their adventurous spirit.

But their spirit of adventure must have been satiated ⁴ on the night of April 18, 1906, the night of the San Francisco earthquake. The entire family escaped unscathed; but cycling around to see the damage, and particularly the displacement at the San Andreas fault, made a big impression on Russell.

When the boys were in their teens, life once more became hard. A new law required all masseurs to be registered, but John was self-taught and could not get a licence. His clientele dried up⁵. In 1914 the family moved to Halcyon, also in California, where they took over the post office and general store -taking with them the family dog, Russell's beehives and two donkeys. Through inheritances, gifts and loans they bought the shop, its stock and, eventually, a house. "They managed", wrote Dorothy Varian, "but the income from the post office and store was barely enough to keep food on the table."

The house took on a cosmopolitan atmosphere as various guests, paying and non-paying, moved in from time to time, some for treatment from John. All were treated with love and some were considered as members of the family. Nan, a lonely Irish girl, was regarded as an adopted niece until her death from tuberculosis - from which Sigurd was later to suffer repeatedly.

Meanwhile the boys made things for amusement, Sigurd stripping old car engines and Russell learning about the audion bulb (the original thermionic triode).