Friends recall loyalty, service

Reagan always invited Williams to sit at his table at the annual White House barbecue.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGS-TOWN — Those who knew him remembered Lyle Williams Saturday as a longtime politician who served the Mahoning Valley in the U.S. House and as a Trumbull County commissioner.

But they were also remembering Williams as a loyal friend and a family man who will be greatly missed.

The one-time barber turned congressman died Friday afternoon at Warren’s ITAM Club of an apparent heart attack. Friends such as Dave Ciarrochi of Warren were still in shock Saturday evening.

“I was supposed to get together with him last night,” said Ciarrochi, who added that Williams had called around 3 p.m. Friday to suggest meeting another friend later for dinner.

Ciarrochi got a call a few hours later after Williams had been taken by ambulance from the Italian American Club on Youngstown-Warren Road to Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital. It was one of Williams’ daughters who called to let him know her father was sick, he said.

The next call came with the bad news: “He’d passed away,” said Ciarrochi, who added that their friendship stemmed from when Williams served in Congress from 1979 to 1984 and when he was the personnel director for the Ohio Department of Transportation.

“We were very close politically, and close friends,” he said.

While Williams served in Congress, he did everything he could to stem job losses here as plants closed, said his former chief of staff Martin Milich, who lives in Boardman.

Milich said that after U.S. Steel announced it was pulling out of the area, Williams joined with the United Steelworkers union in a 1982 suit to keep the company’s plants open. Workers wanted to take over the plants. Even though the suit wasn’t successful, and even though other companies closed plants here, people knew he tried to help, said Milich.

He recalled a visit with Williams to a USW union hall on Salt Springs Road. “A worker shook his hand and said, ‘You’re a man of your word.’”

At the annual White House barbecue, President Ronald Reagan asked Williams to sit at his table every year, said Milich.

In the Valley, Williams loved the ethnic groups and food and accepted a lot of dinner invitations.

“We ate all through this area. He was a people person, no doubt about it,” Milich said.

Tony Bernard, who owns Bernard’s Garden Center and Nursery in Warren, has known Williams “ever since I can remember. He was my barber,” said Bernard.

Bernard served as a county commissioner with Williams in the 1970s. He also worked in his congressional office.

“But we were personal friends above all,” said Bernard, who said he spoke to Williams weekly.

From the Williams’ home in Lordstown, his daughter, Vikki Greene of Mineral Ridge, remembered her father as a well-liked man who loved serving the Valley in Congress.

His wife, Nancy, remembered her husband as a man who loved being with his family, which included four children. “He cooked Sunday dinner for us every week,” she said.

“He canned a lot of hot peppers,” said Bernard. “He just finished the last bunch in September.”

“People would call him or I to get them,” Bernard said. Now we have to ration. No more hot peppers. But you have to remember the good times in sad times like these.”

Calling hours are 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday and 10 a.m. until the service at 11 a.m. Wednesday at McFarland Funeral Home, 271 N. Park Ave. in Warren. Services are Wednesday at the funeral home.