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By the time Virginia Torrey stopped baking pies and cakes, she was “pretty well sweeted out,” said her daughter, Kristi Torrey of Arvada.

Baking included everyone in the Torrey family after Virginia Torrey, who died April 6, joined her late mother, Frances London, in the business: Mrs. London’s Pies of north Denver.

The women operated the wholesale business for 17 years, beginning in 1947, and made thousands of pies and cakes a week, said Torrey’s son John Torrey of Arvada.

Kristi Torrey recalls being the one assigned to hold the newly decorated wedding cakes as her mother drove to the church.

“It never failed that some dumb fool would cut in front of us and I’d try to hold on to the cake and get my thumb in it,” Torrey said. “But Mom always had a ‘repair kit’ along.

Virginia Torrey always was generous with gifts of pies, including the time Kristi Torrey picked a neighbor’s prize-winning roses to take home to her mother. Virginia Torrey quickly baked the woman two pies as an apology.

For many years the shop was across the street from the original site of Elitch Gardens in northwest Denver, and the family regularly went to the amusement park, John Torrey said.

Virginia London was born in La Junta on July 22, 1922, and moved with her family to Denver when she was a child. She graduated from North High School and attended Colorado Woman’s College. She dropped out to join the Navy when her brothers, Joe London and Jack London, joined.

She served as a secretary in San Diego and in Olathe, Kan.

She was injured when she was a passenger in a training plane, “but it was a walkaway deal,” said John Torrey. While recuperating in Olathe, she met Edgar Torrey and they married in 1945.

They lived in Denver many years, where he was a Denver police officer, then worked for the Denver Sheriff’s Department, a job he had for 32 years. After selling Mrs. London’s Pies, Virginia Torrey worked as a dispatcher for the Denver Police Department, retiring in 1985.

After retiring, the couple moved to Pagosa Springs, where she helped “bring the American Legion Post back to life,” her son said. She founded the city’s American Legion Women’s Auxiliary there.

For years, Virginia Torrey played Mrs. Santa Claus during the Christmas season. Her husband played Santa until he died. Later, another man played Santa, with Torrey as Mrs. Claus “and they were out seven days a week, at schools, senior events, everywhere,” said John Torrey. She moved back to Denver in 1992. For several years she was one of the “Ambassadors” at DIA, the cowboy-hatted greeters who help travelers. The program was started by Kristi Torrey, director of customer services at DIA.

In addition to her son and daughter, Virginia Torrey is survived by another son, Thom as Torrey of Pagosa Springs, six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, and her brothers, Joe London of Sacramento, Calif., and Jack London of Arvada.

Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com