By Thomas Clapper
FPS Staff Writer
This year, Bartley Funeral Home is celebrating the 175th year of its family providing funeral service to the Minerva and Malvern area. Funeral Home Director Roger Bartley is the fifth generation of the family and will be the third member generation of the family to be recognized for 50 years of funeral service by the Ohio Funeral Directors Association at the end of this month.
Bartley reflected on his eventful life when asked about the decision to join the family business.
“This is the sort of profession where once you have done it and helped families in this situation, it is hard to walk away from because there is nothing else like it,” said Bartley. “It is tough for us sometimes (emotionally), but the joy you get out of being in the business is helping people through their most difficult times.”
Bartley noted there have been many changes in the funeral home industry since he has started, not only in technology but also the way funerals are being held or not held.
“There was a trend starting which was redefining the services families desired when someone died. The COVID-19 pandemic really accelerated this,” said Bartley. “The pandemic pushed families into doing more on their own such as taking more responsibility planning services and creatively crafting what they wanted to happen.”
Bartley also said cremation is becoming more popular. Currently the ratio is 50% burial and 50% cremation.
About the changes in technology Bartley said “When I started, we would get the obituary written, then get on the telephone and call the newspaper and read the obituary as they typed it. Today the obituary is typed and uploaded to a portal and there is no human contact.”
Bartley also stated the funeral home has been live streaming more services for people who are unable to attend. On a personal note his mother-in-law died during the pandemic and they had a digital event planner in British Columbia coordinate the service with a minister and live music from Minerva, a minister in Maryland, and videos and special music the family requested played from Canada.
“We had Zoom connect us to family members in Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Colorado,” said Roger. “After the service, family members here were able to talk with the out-of-state relatives and show them grandma in the casket and the flower arrangements that had come./roxen-files/print/images/magic-tab.png){kind=small}
We were able to continue the broadcast from the cemetery and show everyone the committal service.”
Bartley Funeral Home beta tested an app for the Batesville Casket Company that is used to enable family members to communicate with one another, remotely put together an obituary, share pictures, videos, and memories, and remotely participate in the arrangement conference.
Roger noted the paper products used at Bartley Funeral Home are custom made and personalized in house which is a long way from printing service folders on the hand printing press in the basement.
Regarding working in a funeral home, Roger says he has to be available 24/7 and ready to serve a grieving family in need.
“It doesn’t matter what plans I might have, when the phone rings, I have to be ready to respond,” said Roger. “The needs of the family I am serving always comes first.”
He prefers to talk with the family as soon as possible because when a death occurs, the lives of those left behind is disrupted.
“That first phone call begins to bring some order back into their life,” he said. “My job satisfaction comes from helping people through the confusion that comes when someone dies and putting together an activity that best honors the life their loved one lived.”
Being on call appears to be a constant in Roger’s life answering the call of duty by serving in the Army during the Vietnam Conflict and becoming the first paramedic in Minerva in 1976.
“When my father, Leroy Bartley, decided that the funeral home ambulance service, started by John Rutledge in 1924, should offer paramedic services, I was sent to school to become the first paramedic in Minerva,” said Roger.
Roger continued the family tradition of community service being active in Boys Scouts, the Rotary Clubs of Minerva and Malvern, The Minerva Public Library Board of Trustees, and The Minerva Community Charitable Fund. In 2023 he was honored to be inducted into the Minerva High School Alumni Hall of Fame.
One accomplishment Roger is proud of is being honored with the 2010 Pursuit of Excellence® Award by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) during its International Convention & Expo in New Orleans, La. That year, only 166 out of 9,900 firms from around the world received this prestigious recognition, placing Bartley Funeral Homeamong an elite group of funeral service professionals.
When asked if there are any lessons or values that have stayed constant through the decades, Roger answered “Death hurts. People cannot and should not go through the grieving process alone. The experienced funeral director can take his years of dealing with families and apply it to the family with whom he is currently working to help ease their pain.Our family history states that in 1887, my great-grandfather, John Rutledge, “laid his steadying hand on the grief-stricken shoulder and spoke consoling words to his first patron.”I hope I do the same with each family I meet.”
The following is a history of the five generations that is Bartley Funeral Home.
The founder of what is now Bartley Funeral Home is William Rutledge who began a furniture and undertaking business in Augusta after serving a three year apprenticeship in Minerva.He made all his furniture and coffins by hand. In 1867, he purchased a farm one-half mile east of Augusta and moved there discontinuing the furniture business but continuing in the undertaking business until 1889, when his health failed him and his son, John Rutledge continued in the business. Upon the death of Wm. Rutledge in 1902, John Rutledge took over the business.
In 1887, John Rutledge directed his first funeral when a new era in embalming was getting underway. The first process was cavity embalming, which proved unsuccessful. Then, arterial and cavity embalming were combined to form the process still used today (although that process has seen many new developments).
Arthur B. Jackson was the third person who figured in the development of the Bartley Funeral Home. While working with the Spring-Holzworth, Co. in Alliance, he met John Rutledge’s daughter, Ogaritta Rutledge, who was attending the Conservatory of Music at Mount Union College.
After graduating from the Columbus School of Embalming at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Jackson and Ogaritta Rutledge were married in 1923 and the couple moved to Minerva to be associated with his father-in-law, John Rutledge, in forming the funeral home which bore their names, the Rutledge-Jackson Funeral Home.In 1927, they purchased the current funeral home property on West Lincoln and moved operations from their Line Street location.
In July, 1937, the Rutledge-Jackson Funeral Home honored Mr. Rutledge by holding a two-day “open house” in celebration of his 50 years of active mortician service. That year the Ohio Funeral Directors Association presented him a 50-year pin during their annual convention in Dayton.
Arthur and Ogarrita Jackson had two daughters, Leatrice Ann, a former English teacher at Minerva High School, and Marilyn Rose Jackson, who becomes Mrs. Leroy G. Bartley. Arthur unfortunately suffered a second cerebral hemorrhage on Oct. 15, 1949, and passed away four days later at the age of 51. Within the community, Arthur Jackson worked in civic events and organizations including being a member of the Minerva Community Association, a charter member of the Lions Club and the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Leroy Bartley served five years in the Army Medical Corps during World War II and spent over three years in the China-Burma-India Theater of the war. After the war, he came to Minerva to work at the Rutledge-Jackson Funeral Home.He graduated from the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science in September of 1949 with high honors. Leroy married Marilyn in June of 1949. Following the death of Arthur Jackson, he became manager of the funeral home.
Leroy was an active member of the Minerva community as a member of the Community Association and the Minerva United Methodist Church. He served as president of the Rotary Club, and as Chairman of the Minerva Red Cross Chapter. As chairman he worked to bring the first Bloodmobile to Minerva.
His flying and scuba diving skills brought an association with the Minerva Pilots Association and the development of the Minerva Airport, as well as the founding of the Minerva Auxiliary Police and SCUBA Team with which he held the position of Diving Officer.
Marilyn received her license in 1952 and served her two-year apprenticeship under her grandfather and husband Leroy. In 1960 they purchased the Rutledge-Jackson Funeral Home from Marilyn’s mother Ogarrita Jackson.
The law in the state of Ohio at that time would not allow the addition of the Bartley name to the name of a deceased funeral director, so the firm was renamed to the Bartley Funeral Home.
Roger Bartley is the fifth-generation funeral director working with his family’s firm in Minerva and Malvern. Roger lives in Minerva with his wife Sherry; they have three grown sons and nine grandchildren.
In 1993, the Bartley family purchased the Deckman Funeral Home in Malvern, and the business was renamed the Deckman-Bartley Funeral Home in 1995.
For more information or if their services are required, call Bartley Funeral Home in Minerva at 330-868-4114 or Deckman-Bartley Funeral Home at 330-863-0441. For more information on the funeral home including a longer history see www.bartleyfuneralhome.com.