Now 87 years of age and fully retired, former Mathews Sheriff’s Deputy Byron “Sarge” Van Zile Jr. spent 64 years of his life in uniform, always seeking to “have respect for what the uniform stands for.”

Born in Ithaca, New York, in 1937, Van Zile was brought up on Cayuga Lake, one of five finger lakes near Lake Ontario. He remembers a childhood with no radio or television, when children helped out at home and found ways to entertain themselves. He was always on the water, and at age 14 became a Sea Scout, beginning his lifelong dedication to “the uniform.”

At 16, Van Zile joined the Ithaca Volunteer Fire Department, serving alongside his father, and went on to join two other fire departments, Dryden and Etna, serving as assistant chief at the latter. To this day, Van Zile remains an honorary member of the Ithaca Veteran Volunteer Firemen’s Association.

After graduating from high school at age 18, Van Zile was off to the U.S. Navy, where he served four years as an aviation jet mechanic petty officer and was awarded the Good Conduct Medal. His four years of service fell between the Korean and Vietnam wars, so he saw no action, but he was twice deployed to the Mediterranean Sea, serving on the USS Lake Champlain.

After Navy life, Van Zile “goofed around a while,” then a position opened up at the sheriff’s office for Tompkins County (N.Y.) The sheriff wasn’t sure about hiring a young, unmarried man, but when Van Zile told him he was a Republican, it sealed the deal.

“He told me to be there first thing in the morning,” said Van Zile.

Thus began a career of service for Van Zile. His county covered 800 square miles of roads, and he had six different villages to patrol with just a nightstick and handcuffs. “We had no Mace and no portable radio,” he said. Two deputies served during the day and one at night. When there was no dispatcher on duty, a deputy was expected to field calls.

After eight years, Van Zile left the sheriff’s office to work as a police officer in various villages in the region, but he returned to the sheriff’s office six years later with the understanding that he could work part time for the villages, as well. Thus, he was a police officer in the villages of Dryden, Freeville and Groton.

Van Zile was the first navigation officer for Tompkins County, living on and patrolling a 43-mile finger lake while also serving as a patrol officer on the roads. He said there were frequent drownings in the 375-foot-deep lake. Deaths were the worst part of being in law enforcement, he said. There was a small community airport in Ithaca, and he recalled the airplane crashes, two of which he had to work during snowstorms and one that involved a Navy jet that “nose-dived into the ground.” His worst memory was of the New Year’s Eve that he had to break the news to his sister-in-law that her baby had died of crib death.

There were triumphs, as well, and Van Zile told of a series of burglaries that occurred at a lumber yard and a school bus garage in the village of Dryden. He said he knew who the burglars were but didn’t have any evidence, so at the suggestion of a bus driver, he put a walkie-talkie in the lumber yard, and one night the owner called and said there was someone there.

“I ran across the yard and got one of them in the snow,” he said. “All four got arrested, and it solved 22 burglaries. The paperwork killed you.”

One of his most striking memories was of protests that occurred in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. “Fire bombs were going off all across the city,” said Van Zile.

But many of the calls Van Zile got were petit larcenies and fights in bars, typical of a small college town. During the Vietnam War, when there were gas shortages, “kids would steal it from farmers’ tractors,” he said. In one incident, a farmer fired off a shot “just wanting to scare a kid,” and he killed him.

In 1983, Van Zile retired from the county sheriff’s office, but continued working in the villages, finally retiring as the Village of Groton Chief of Police in 1999.

The following year, Van Zile and his late wife Maxine, herself a volunteer firefighter, 911 dispatcher, and jail matron, moved to Mathews to join their daughter and her family, who came to Mathews during her husband’s career in the U.S. Air Force. It wasn’t long before Van Zile went to work part-time for the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office, serving as a courtroom bailiff and court document carrier.

Over the years, Van Zile attended numerous continuing education classes and won a number of awards, including Kiwanis Law Enforcement Officer of the Month, a Tompkins County Domestic Violence Award, a Knights of Justice Award from the governor of New York, and a service award from the Village of Dryden.

In November 2022, Van Zile had just walked into the Gloucester courthouse when he had a major cardiac event. He fell to the floor, unconscious and not breathing, and was resuscitated by two Gloucester Sheriff’s deputies. That was the end of his career in uniform.

But Van Zile’s legacy of public service and love of the uniform has passed down to his children. His daughter Sheri married a fire safety coordinator and past EMS medic and volunteer fire chief, Jeff, and their daughter Jessica works for the Virginia Department of Corrections as an accounts clerk. Jessica’s husband is a sheriff’s department sergeant. Sheri and Jeff’s son Scott is a sheriff’s department investigator and volunteer assistant fire chief, and his wife Nicole is a state police investigator.

Van Zile’s daughter Tina served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and all three of her sons served in the military—Nathaniel and Calvin in the U.S. Air Force and Jacob in the U.S. Marines.

Kathy, Van Zile’s third daughter, is a registered nurse and paramedic who has served as a volunteer firefighter and EMT instructor, and her husband Eric is a police department investigator and paramedic who has also been a paid firefighter.

Daughter number four, Terri, is a registered nurse and CPR instructor whose late husband, Michael, died in the line of duty while serving as a special services investigator. He had also been a police officer and had served in the U.S. Air Force.

Terri’s son Bailey is a paramedic and dive medic who owns a diving service, and her son Bristol is a deputy sheriff.
Van Zile said he had told all of his children and grandchildren “not to be a cop because of the way things are nowadays,” but he had to admit that “it’s been a good life,” and that “everybody should look at a job they want to do.”