Name: Barbara Gallagher Stoffa
Place of Birth: Pottsville, PA
Education: Hazleton High School, Wilkes University, B.A.., Chestnut Hill College MSW
Retired as Director of Lehigh County Childrens’ Mental Health
Currently President of the Board of the Child Advocacy Center of Lehigh County
Hobbies: Reading, traveling, history, playing Free Cell on her laptop while watching Netflix movies
Children: 2
JS: What’s it like being married to John Stoffa?
BGS: (long pause) …an adventure. It’s, um, always something new. Life with him has been full of offbeat unlikely interests and activities. I grew up in the suburbs and downtown residential areas of small towns. I had no farm background at all and so my husband having a beef steer, us buying a property with a barn and other outbuildings on it, having ducks and other kinds of farm animals was absolutely mind bending to me. I became very comfortable with it. I love animals. I loved it when we stabled horses on our property; I got a kick out of all of John’s interests in animal husbandry, but you can’t say I shared these interests. John and I were very much a “Green Acres” couple if you remember that old TV show.
JS: You were Zsa Zsa Gabor?
BGS: Yes, I was Zsa Zsa, or Eva. I think it was Eva Gabor. People ask me ‘Do you help John planting the corn?’ I usually answer “No, I don’t want to wreck my manicure.”
JS: Has he ever made you a birdhouse?
BGS: No, he hasn’t.
JS: If he did, what do you think it would look like?
BGS: I’m sure it would be extravagant, expensive, and colorful.
JS: It’s obvious the Stoffas are more private and less social than other political couples in the Lehigh Valley. Why is that?
BGS: That really isn’t by design. That just sort of evolved because John and I are definitely homebodies and John has always, well… yes, I’d say from very early on in his career he has served on Boards and had evening meetings, always had a full time job, and so when weekends came, we both wanted to be at home. We never talked about it or decided, we just preferred being in our own home. We would entertain, of course, but usually it was family, very close friends, visiting in each others’ homes, going to the movies. We really did not feel drawn to large social gatherings.
JS: What’s the biggest misconception about your husband?
BGS: That he is a serious, dour person. You have to spend some time with him in a small group to be able to see that he can be very silly and I’m sure most people can’t picture John Stoffa being silly, but believe me he has great capability in that direction.
JS: How has he changed politically in the last 40 years? …if he’s changed at all.
BGS: I think the most noticeable thing to me is the growth of his political interest. When we met and in the early days of our marriage, he didn’t have any more interest in politics than the average person in the street. It was when he began to work at the County level where he interacted with County Council and the County Executive that I saw his political interests really crystallize. I think that before that, politics was academic. But when he worked for the County and could actually see decisions being made and how they were being made and who had what part in making decisions, it became very real for him and he developed a very substantial interest in local politics at that time. Of course , he has a substantial interest in state and national politics, but he definitely believes all politics is local, as some famous politician once said.
JS: You like to say, “The things you don’t know at the altar.” What things did you not know?
BGS: Certainly, I never thought that one day I would be in a barn in February helping John help a ewe deliver her twins. Additionally, I didn’t know that he would develop such a huge interest in politics. I didn’t realize that he would develop such an interest in his community. I grew up in a home where neither parent was active in any community-building or community service organizations. They both played golf and that’s how they spent the bulk of their free time, and so this was a very new world to me: something I don’t think I ever could have anticipated unless perhaps I had been very analytic about his family . Looking back now I see that his father was very active in his community. So now it all seems very logical but as it developed it was all very surprising to me.
JS: What’s your favorite John Stoffa story?
BGS: I don’t know my favorite favorite but certainly one of the top five is a good example of how John can use humor to deal with things and be a little outrageous. He was serving as Director of Human Services and every year he had to present his budget to county council. He knew his budget was going to be controversial and raise some possibly angry discussion, so he went to a friend of his who was a Bethlehem policeman and borrowed a bullet proof jacket, the real thing. He showed up at the County Council meeting wearing it on top of his suit and made some silly remarks about “I’m ready to present my budget” and of course he looked goofy. He had a suit and a tie and shirt on. The bullet proof vest crushed the suit, and the shoulders looked goofy. The whole thing looked goofy yet he sat there in the meeting like that the whole time.
JS: Going back to the silly side of Dad, can you tell the salamander story?
BGS: Oh…. Puff the magic dragon? Well, when John and I were dating, there was a bar in Hazleton where I lived that we went to a lot called “The Anywhere.” It was one of those dark bars and I learned the hard way I think that one of the reasons they kept it so dark was so you couldn’t see how dirty the place was. At any rate, there were a bunch of us there and one of my friends is a fellow who was very easily affected by alcohol. We used to tell him that if he just read a beer label, he’d drop over. Well, John, out at State College had bought a pet at a pet store. It was a small salamander and he named it Puff the Magic Dragon. He was in Hazleton for the weekend to see me…
JS: What year is this?
BGS: This is somewhere between ’62 and’65. And so he had Puff the Magic Dragon in his sportcoat pocket, and of course didn’t tell anyone. So we’re at the “Anywhere” talking and drinking, and John very stealthily took Puff the Magic Dragon out of his coatpocket and just put him on the table that we were sitting at, and he, you know, all of us, except the friend who was so easily affected by alcohol, noticed it. John put his finger to his lips like, “Don’t say anything” and then of course we all caught on and so we just let Puff walk around the table until finally our friend Bruce noticed him and “Oh my God! What’s that?” and we all said, “What are you talking about?” and he said, “What? Oh my God? Is that a lizard or what is that thing?” And of course Puff is walking all over the table and we’re saying, “Bruce, I don’t see anything. You really have to slow down with your beer.” And so this went on and on until very unexpectedly, Bruce, getting more and more alarmed, swatted it off the table like it was a bug or something. So poor Puff goes flying off the table and lands on the floor. Then we were all up on our feet,“Oh my God, where’s Puff?” He had landed under the next table, which was occupied. John was on his feet like a fireman to the rescue, and he and I each got on the floor among these people’s feet and legs , telling them to be careful that there was a lizard here. They were screaming and finally John found him. Poor Puff was covered with dust balls that were stuck to his skin from being on this filthy floor of the bar. When John picked him up and put him back on our table, he really did look like Puff the Magic Dragon, he looked like a puff ball of dust. ..and of course Bruce said, “ I’ll never touch another drop. “
JS: Which of course didn’t happen.
BGS: No, it didn’t.
JS: To end this interview, is there anything you’d like to add or say yourself?
BGS: Um.…(pause) ….yes. I’d like to say… describe something about my husband that I’m proud of, and there are a lot of things, but this in particular in his political life: John is not the kind of a politician who’s real hot to have cornerstones laid and have his name engraved on things. In fact, I’d really say he isn’t a politician, but the best way to describe him in public office is that he’s an administrator, a manager. He sits down at his desk, looks at what work needs to be done and starts to do the work. He goes to very few political events, we don’t entertain, uh ... any differently than when we were first married, few close friends, family. So he sees the office he holds as his job. He goes there every day. He focuses on what needs to be done. The first year I’d say he focused very much on things that had already begun, needed to be finished, things that had deadlines. I think probably a year went by before he could get down to some of the things he wanted to. He is focused on the County and its needs. He has no ambitions for further office, which is of course a large part why he doesn’t go to the political things that anyone would who wanted to have further office. Certainly, he sees nothing wrong with those events, but they just doesn’t apply to him. He goes to work and does the things that aren’t glamorous . They’re not exciting, there’s no fanfare necessarily, but they are the things that need to be done, no more than cutting the grass, doing the food shopping, cleaning the house, or changing the oil in your car. He is engaged in the maintenance of this County in the most cost-efficient and fair minded way. He is not going to build buildings and lay cornerstones. That is not him. I am very proud of him that he doesn’t have a need to do things like that and he can focus on the non-glamorous, but necessary things.
JS: Are you going to vote for him?
BGS: Yes.
No comments:
Post a Comment