Mississippi Railroad Man Honored

Willie Varnado Sr. in his red steward's jacket

This Saturday May 9th is National Train Day. As MPB’s Ron Brown reports, for one Mississippi man, after years of working to make train passengers comfortable, it’s finally his turn to get the royal treatment.

For the Varnado family of Florence, Mississippi, the sound of a passenger train pulling into a station is a familiar one.
It’s a comfortable sound that gives rise to many good memories. The Varnado men are railroad men. Working on a train was Willie Varnado Jr.’s first job experience.

“When I was in late high school and early college I got the opportunity to work on the railroad during summer and Christmas breaks and that type of thing.”

It wasn’t very difficult for Willie Varnado Junior to get a job on a passenger train. He knew somebody. His father, Willie Varnado Senior was a railroad veteran, so you could say he greased the wheels.

“Dad had pull. And I was so thankful. One of the best jobs I ever had.”

Willie Varnado Senior did not have help when he got his first railroad job 70 years ago.

“I left Mississippi going to Chicago to get a job, on the railroad. In 1939”

Upon first arriving in Chicago, Willie Varnado Senior took a job six days a week at a Walgreens Drug store.
But every seventh day, he’d go to the railroad station to speak to the station director.

“I told him, I said now, I working here right now for Walgreen drug store, every six days. And as you can see I’m here every Sunday morning. Now, unless you want me to keep coming here every Sunday morning you give me a job. And eventually he did.”

It was a working relationship that lasted 32 years. Varnado began as a busboy on a Santa Fe Railway dining car. Then he worked as a waiter. Then head waiter.

“Every time I made a move, I made a higher move.”

Finally, in the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960’s Varnado’s boss promoted Willie to the top of the dining car hierarchy: steward.

“He called me up to his office and told me today, you’re going out as a dining car steward. And that was the first day that a black man had been a dining car steward on the dining cars in the United States. I was the first one.”

Willie’s promotion was a first for a black man on the Santa Fe railway, and possibly the nation. Now at 95 years old, Willie Varnado Senior is back in Mississippi and long since retired. But his railroad days are not over. Later this week he will be one of five railroad workers honored by Amtrak in Philadelphia during National Train Day May 9th. The men are former Pullman porters, chefs and dining car stewards, like Willie. Hard working railroad men mostly overlooked, until now.

"He is a perfect example of being dedicated to his job his family and to serving others.”

Gina Varnado is Willie’s proud daughter in law.

“He was dedicated. Anyone who would show up at work two hours ahead of time…. and if he wasn’t there two hours ahead of schedule , his bosses would be concerned. So he was a great example of having an awesome work ethic.”

Amtrak will fly Willie from Mississippi to Washington D.C., but for the last part of the trip into Philadephia, he will get back on a train, first class all the way.

“They’re really gonna take good care of these men who for so many years served so many people and now they’re gonna turn around and serve them.”

That will be just fine with Willie Varnado Senior, who knows what it takes to be a good passenger.

“I’m gonna have a ball. Whatever they give, I’ll take, and enjoy. Because I worked for it.”

For MPB News, I’m Ron Brown