A Diamond on the Hill: Morgan’s Jewelers’ Marshall Varon calls it a day
by Mark McDermott Marshall Varon loved and respected his father, but he had absolutely no intention of following him into the family business. Morgan and Helen Varon founded Morgan’s Jewelry in 1946. Morgan was newly returned from World War II, where he served in the Air Force in England. He’d grown up in Seattle, and while he was in the military, his brother had entered the jewelry trade. His mother, a Greek immigrant, had taken his brother to a jeweler in Seattle and asked him to apprentice her son. This was the old way of learning the trade. By the time Morgan returned from the war, his brother had moved to California, and opened up his own small jewelry store in Huntington Park. Morgan joined his brother in the business. “When I say small, it was very small,” Marshall Varon said. “It was like two cases deep — two cases on either side of the doorway, and a small office behind. So I guess my dad got claustrophobic after a while and moved to Del Amo Mall, when it was first starting out, back in the day.” Marshall worked in the store while in high school, but when he thought about the future, he didn’t picture being in the store, or anywhere inside, for that matter. “I was more of…
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