Board members and friends of CRISPAZ mourned the May 27 passing of Rev. William Lytle, one of the first Board members at Christians for Peace in El Salvador. He was 87 and died of cancer only days within discovering his disease had metastasized. Lytle is survived by his wife Renate Frick Lytle Gatos, and children, daughters Ruth Hamilton of Washington, D.C., and Aimee Hearn of Groveton, Texas; and sons David Lytle of San Antonio and Paul Bierman-Lytle of Denver. Lytle had nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by his first wife of 58 years, Faith Williamson Lytle of San Antonio.
Lytle was born in Pittsburgh July 3, 1923, and after the influence of growing up in his father’s United Presbyterian Church in Ben Avon, PA, Lytle became an ordained minister in 1947. He and wife, Faith, were “mobile missionaries” in the remote ranching areas of Reserve and Corona, N.M., and then they moved in 1962 to Clarksville, AR, where he directed the Ozarks Area Mission program at the College of the Ozarks for 11 years. Beginning in 1973, he served 17 years as pastor at Madison Square Presbyterian Church in San Antonio. He retired in 1990 as pastor.
In 1978, while in San Antonio, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church USA, leading that year’s annual national gathering of church representatives and visiting as the church’s representative through the year throughout the United States, also visiting Ireland and numerous African nations.
“Bill Lytle served on the CRISPAZ Board from the very beginning” of the organization, in 1985,” recalled Rev. Peter Hinde, OCarm, one of the three founders of Christians for Peace in El Salvador. “With one interruption, he served for a total of 12 years, three of those years as president of the Board. He gave extra time in the beginning as a member of the Board Support Committee for the first staff members of CRISPAZ in San Antonio. Bill brought a deep spirituality to CRISPAZ and commitment to the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One time on a Board meeting he was asked to do a favorite recitation from memory.: the complete fifth and sixth chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel…This was no recitation, but the Gospel come alive in the accents and gestures of Bill in sharing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He held us spellbound.”
“Bill’s smile made me melt with joy,” said current CRIZPAZ Chair Cathy Cornell. “Bill was a big man. Yes, he was tall, but his presence was big. Not a flashy, look at me kind of presence but a feeling of solid calm and caring. One of my first memories of Bill was meeting at Jennifer Casolo’s mom’s house in a small town in Connecticut and his wise and thoughtful presence taught me so much – about valuing each voice and holding the large view. But mostly what I remember is Bill’s big smile…with joy.”
“When I think back to the many CRISPAZ meetings where Bill was present or facilitating, my picture and feelings of him are that of Bill the Reconciler,” said Paul Knitter, former CRISPAZ Board President. “He had an easy-going or free-flowing, but at the same time clear and strong, way of inviting people to both speak their minds and listen to what others had to say. His was a gentleness that brought people together.”
Peter Hinde also recalled Lytle’s ability to see through the darkness of the military in El Salvador during the civil war.
“Bill on one of his visits in the 1980s in El Salvador with others of CRISPAZ had an interview with General Eugenio Vides Casanova. He commented afterwards how a fine uniform could cover deep evil. Vides Casanova, with another top officer of the Salvador Armed Forces was later charged and convicted in a civil trial in Miami court of torture of two Salvadorans who had survived and were living in the United States, along with two retired military leaders.”
Always eager to be engaged in community, Lytle was key in the development of Hospice for people living in downtown San Antonio, where with his first wife, Faith, they also established a base for Habitat for Humanity that operated for a quarter-century. After Faith’s death, Lytle moved to Los Gatos, CA, to marry a college-friend, Renate Frick, who herself was widowed. “Friends attested that late marriage was a marriage leading Bill into the foyer of Heaven,” Peter Hinde said.
Lytle was born in Pittsburgh July 3, 1923, and after the influence of growing up in his father’s United Presbyterian Church in Ben Avon, PA, Lytle became an ordained minister in 1947. He and wife, Faith, were “mobile missionaries” in the remote ranching areas of Reserve and Corona, N.M., and then they moved in 1962 to Clarksville, AR, where he directed the Ozarks Area Mission program at the College of the Ozarks for 11 years. Beginning in 1973, he served 17 years as pastor at Madison Square Presbyterian Church in San Antonio. He retired in 1990 as pastor.
In 1978, while in San Antonio, he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church USA, leading that year’s annual national gathering of church representatives and visiting as the church’s representative through the year throughout the United States, also visiting Ireland and numerous African nations.
“Bill Lytle served on the CRISPAZ Board from the very beginning” of the organization, in 1985,” recalled Rev. Peter Hinde, OCarm, one of the three founders of Christians for Peace in El Salvador. “With one interruption, he served for a total of 12 years, three of those years as president of the Board. He gave extra time in the beginning as a member of the Board Support Committee for the first staff members of CRISPAZ in San Antonio. Bill brought a deep spirituality to CRISPAZ and commitment to the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One time on a Board meeting he was asked to do a favorite recitation from memory.: the complete fifth and sixth chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel…This was no recitation, but the Gospel come alive in the accents and gestures of Bill in sharing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He held us spellbound.”
“Bill’s smile made me melt with joy,” said current CRIZPAZ Chair Cathy Cornell. “Bill was a big man. Yes, he was tall, but his presence was big. Not a flashy, look at me kind of presence but a feeling of solid calm and caring. One of my first memories of Bill was meeting at Jennifer Casolo’s mom’s house in a small town in Connecticut and his wise and thoughtful presence taught me so much – about valuing each voice and holding the large view. But mostly what I remember is Bill’s big smile…with joy.”
“When I think back to the many CRISPAZ meetings where Bill was present or facilitating, my picture and feelings of him are that of Bill the Reconciler,” said Paul Knitter, former CRISPAZ Board President. “He had an easy-going or free-flowing, but at the same time clear and strong, way of inviting people to both speak their minds and listen to what others had to say. His was a gentleness that brought people together.”
Peter Hinde also recalled Lytle’s ability to see through the darkness of the military in El Salvador during the civil war.
“Bill on one of his visits in the 1980s in El Salvador with others of CRISPAZ had an interview with General Eugenio Vides Casanova. He commented afterwards how a fine uniform could cover deep evil. Vides Casanova, with another top officer of the Salvador Armed Forces was later charged and convicted in a civil trial in Miami court of torture of two Salvadorans who had survived and were living in the United States, along with two retired military leaders.”
Always eager to be engaged in community, Lytle was key in the development of Hospice for people living in downtown San Antonio, where with his first wife, Faith, they also established a base for Habitat for Humanity that operated for a quarter-century. After Faith’s death, Lytle moved to Los Gatos, CA, to marry a college-friend, Renate Frick, who herself was widowed. “Friends attested that late marriage was a marriage leading Bill into the foyer of Heaven,” Peter Hinde said.
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