City of Westerville Staff Profile

: Sharon Lytle – Westerville Department of Public Service

Sharon Lytle thinks one aspect of her job – and, now, one of her personal hobbies – is historical interest, but she admits people have asked if it’s a bit morbid. She tells them “no,” and usually proceeds to mention one of many lost stories or historical legacies she has uncovered right here in Westerville’s cemeteries. As an administrative assistant in the Department of Public Service, Lytle has explored the cemeteries and created new programs that have offered honor and remembrance to families near and far.

How long have you worked for the City of Westerville?

I have worked for the City for 23 years. I was first hired in as a secretary, then promoted to administrative assistant. All of these years have been in the Service Department. I love it here and wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.

Where are you from?

I grew up in Chillicothe, and eventually took a job working for the Central Ohio YMCA on Karl Road. While looking for something better, I applied for the secretary position here and was lucky enough to get it.

What is a typical day for you in the Service Department?

There’s not really such a thing as a “typical” day for me. It changes on a regular basis. Every day, we answer the phones for the variety of service requests that come in, and I often troubleshoot problems. I also assist with the budget and fleet maintenance records and, of course, cemetery projects. I find that 95 percent of my job consists of the 5 percent “other” that you do.

How did you get involved in becoming a historianof-sorts for the local cemeteries?

When I started this project, I realized that a portion of the records we inherited had not survived. Pioneer (Cemetery) records were lost prior to 1935 due to a fire or flood. Otterbein (Cemetery) had sketchy information; sometimes just a last name was recorded. And in the case of Potter’s Field, no burials were recorded at all. So I learned as much about research techniques as I could and then started restoring these records, filling in the missing information.

Later, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) was just becoming something the City was using. The former department director, John Dean, and I came up with the idea and thought it would be great if you could take a virtual tour of the graves and find out more information about each site. I started showing him information sheets of everyone in the mausoleum, and we gained more support from that point. Since then, we developed the idea that allows you to click on the grave, and you could find a picture of the headstone as well as the obituary. It basically started 15 years ago and grew. For me, the biggest thing to get and keep me involved was that someone from New Jersey took photos of my great-grandparents’ headstones and sent them to me. It’s something I may not ever see in person, so it was a very moving experience.

Tell us more about the cemetery project.

The project is fully accessible through the website (www.westerville.org >> City Departments >> Public Service Department >> Cemetery Interactive Map). The user can bring up the map and search for any portion of a name. For instance, if the name is “John,” it will pull everyone whose first name was John or whose last name was Johnston or Johnson. Once the name comes up, clicking on the link provides a picture of the headstone and links to personal information about that individual or their obituary.

To find the obituaries, we’ve searched records that were published in the Westerville News and Public Opinion and are accessible on the Westerville Public Library website. Also, The Columbus Dispatch has a searchable list dating back to 1932. We then created a template so that we could make them accessible in the mapping system and connect the information to the appropriate site.

What do you hope it will accomplish?

There seems to be interest in general of a maintaining a little remembrance of the past. Also, some of the more prominent people in Westerville – publishers or businesspeople – should be of interest to students. Older obituaries, for example, talk about the town and what they did for Westerville, and how the City has progressed since then. The main reason for me is to help people who cannot get here, especially the elderly who are intent on finding their roots and connecting with the past again. I’ve had people from as far away as Kansas and even Canada e-mail and ask for photos. This way, they can access it all online.

What have you learned from the project?

I think this project will be a great research tool. Just recently, I received a phone call from a lady in Boston hoping I could help her track down the cemetery where her grandparents were buried. She was hoping to bury her parents next to them, but all she knew was that they were somewhere in Westerville. She’s just one of quite a few people who have called looking for lost relatives.

Westerville prides itself on its history. I find that these activities are a reminder about the everyday struggles of the people who have died and been buried here. It has to do mainly with remembering those who have gone before us, and in doing so, we honor their struggles, their losses and their triumphs. They have amazing stories to tell.

What are your hobbies?

Cemeteries. I work with Operation Flag, where we go out and restore abandoned cemeteries where unmarked veterans may be buried. We’ve found several veterans who lie in unmarked graves, and by placing a flag there, it’s as if we say, “We know you’re here and we have you a headstone now.” We found William Milton, who served in the 54th Massachusetts Unit that the movie Glory was based on. He was one of the original members, and he left for the military from Westerville. He was eventually severely wounded in the attack, sent back to Westerville and later put to rest here.

Working on this outside of work has become my passion. Once or twice a year, my daughter and I travel to different places to admire old abandoned graveyards. There is beautiful stonework at most of these sites, and you can really focus on piecing together history from the times that people have died. In Clifton Union Cemetery, we came across six Revolutionary soldiers. We cleaned off their headstones so that people can read them and laid flowers there.

Finally, I also keep very active with my four grandsons, aging 4 years old to 15.