John Stoffa Remembered By Friends and Family

Former Northampton County Executive John Stoffa lost a long battle with Parkinson's Friends last week. Friends and family paid tribute to him on Friday night in what at times was more like a comedy show than a viewing. Stoffa would have been pleased. 

Mount Bethel Church Pastor Dan Chistenson served more as a master of ceremonies than as a preacher. A former prison board member, he said Ron Angle is the person who sent him to jail and Stoffa kept him there.  

Stoffa was a farm boy from Jim Thorpe who came up hard. He put himself through school after serving in the Army. He boarded with the Gallagher family, whose daughter was attending a different college. When John was at school, Barbara was home. When Barbara was at school, John was boarding. They did eventually meet. It was love at first sight for John. Anyone who has seen or knows Barbara could understand that. For Barbara, it probably took longer. A lot longer.  

John worked in Northampton County's Human Services, where he headed up Children and Youth.  Back in those days, Human Services was scattered at numerous places around the county. I got to know him in the stairwells. Whenever he was at the courthouse, he eschewed the elevator for the steps. I remember seeing a 96' foot man with a carrot red top bounding up the steps at the speed of light. He'd always smile and would say Hi as he knocked me on my ass. 

When Gerald E "Jerry" Seyfried became Executive, he tapped Stoffa to take over what was then a scandal-ridden department. In four short years, Human Services in Northampton County became a model for the rest of the state.  John then moved over to Lehigh County to head their Human Services. 

After he retired, he was at the forefront of an open space referendum in Northampton County. I was opposed for reasons that make no difference now. I ran a dirty, negative campaign, which comes natural for me. Anonymous fliers. Automated robocalls. I still remember making prank calling John while he was out baling hay or doing whatever the hell farmers do. I tried my best to muddy him up, but failed. The bastard beat me about 65/35.

We actually became friends. He's the most honest man I've ever seen, in or out of government. 

When he decided to run for Executive, I supported him. Then he made the goofiest campaign pledge you'll ever hear made by an office seeker.  He promised to raise taxes. That's right. He told voters that if they elected him, he'd raise their taxes a half mill for an open space program that would fund farmland preservation, the purchase of environmentally sensitive land and municipal parks. 

"They elected me anyway," he later liked to quip.

They elected him a second time, too, with no opposition from Republicans in the general election. Now John was not just a Democrat, but a liberal Democrat. He believed in things like voter day registration and lowering the voting age to 16. His favorite President was LBJ. But as Executive, he cared very little about party affiliation. He appointed Republicans like Vic Mazziotti to his cabinet. This drove Democrats nuts. His strongest ally on County Council was conservative Ron Angle.

One was a social services do-gooder. The other was a wheeler dealer who made millions robbing investing in banks and real estate. Both were farmers at heart who detested bad government.

At John's viewing, Ron said that Stoffa always wanted him to call when feeding his cows so John could listen to them.

"You know, you kinda' sound like them," Angle would tell Stoffa.

This unlikely duo understood that party affiliation means very little in local government. No neglected or abused child insists on a Republican or Democratic caseworker.   

Vic Mazziotti was John's Director of Fiscal Affairs. He went on to become an outspoken Lehigh County Comm'r, but said that working for John was the "highest honor " he ever had in government service.

He noted that John refused to accept anything from anyone. In fact, in his bid for re-election, he funded his campaign out of his own pocket.   

Vic said that, after a tour of Just Born candy factory, all were provided a bag of candies. Stoffa refused to accept his. 

He also mentioned that, after meeting with a shady vendor, he told Stoffa that "you need to count your fingers" after shaking hands with that person. Then Vic winced. Stoffa was already minus two fingers as a result of a farming injury he suffered as a boy. Stoffa laughed. 

Son Jeff said he and dad spent one evening carefully littering the county with campaign signs in one of the primaries. The next morning, he noticed that every single sign they had planted was gone. Angry, Jeff started yanking out the opponent's signs. His father stopped him. "We don't do that sort of thing," Stoffa admonished. Jeff had to put them all back. 

This is a man who, until he had a hip replacement, refused to take a parking spot in the county garage. He could be seen trudging up the 7th Street hill, with briefcase and deerstalker hat, every morning. 

Lamont McClure, the current County Executive, was the first person at John Stoffa's viewing. He said John's legacy can be found in every park, in the centralized human services building that the county was eventually able to buy on favorable terms and in the West Easton work release facility that really makes a jail expansion totally unnecessary. "His legacy is real, we can see it, it's tangible."

McClure noted that when he was on County Council, Stoffa often glared at him because McClure had a tendency to throw monkey wrenches into Stoffa's plans. Now that he's the Executive, "I know why." McClure stated that Stoffa had been very generous with his time and support since leaving office.

Vicky Bastidas, Director of Camel's Hump Farm, credited Stoffa for the county's contribution toward the purchase of Camel's Hump Farm, adjoining Housenick Park. Instead of a 420-unit development proposed at that site, the land is now used as a nature education center and community garden.

John had a knack for sending very strange packages and letters. I'd occasionally get one from him, adorned with all kinds of stickers. It might contain a news clipping, book or a brief, handwritten note. He did this to members of his family, too.  One of his nephews said he'd get strange boxes every Christmas with an assortment of oddities. He'd have no idea what most were until something would break down and he'd immediately realize that this coil or that string was exactly what he needed. 

"I know a little bit about everything, and that often does me more harm than good," Stoffa once told me as he commented on plantings around the courthouse that he was sure would be dead in a few months. He was right. 

He was generous with his time and his ear, but not the county purse. I remember often seeing him run around the courthouse, turning off lights in bathrooms.      

Like every county executive, he was cheap. "You know, the hardest word in the English language is No."  He said it often. 

This was a farm boy who saved everything and even had Angle give him the string from his feed bags. 

He even found a use for a deer that dropped dead in front of his house. He called Jerry Seyfried. "Could you use a deer?" he asked. Jerry loves venison and came right over. He and Jeff Stoffa were having a tough time loading a seven-point buck onto Jerry's truck. Stoffa abandoned his walker and next thing you know, he was behind the wheel of a front-end loader. 

"Oh no you don't" said Jerry. "That's a brand new truck!" Jerry and Jeff somehow found the strength to load the deer.

Incidentally, Stoffa called the Game Warden and paid a $10 fee for each of the seven points.

Diogenes was known for walking around Athens with a lantern in a vain search for an honest man. 

He never met Stoffa. 

Jeff Stoffa, one of John's sons, started the hilarity with this eulogy:

Being John Stoffa’s son meant that you were also his partner-in-crime for every whim, project, and hobby he came up with.

When I was 8 years old, he woke me up on a Saturday morning and said, “Jeffrey!  Get up!  We’re going to buy some albino peacocks from some Amish people!”

Now being only 8 years old, I did not know what albino or Amish meant.  I was very focused on my new metal lunch pail that I just got with Sonny and Cher on it.  “Well,” I thought.  “I don’t know anything about these Amish people but I’m sure that they must be Sonny and Cher fans like me, so I’ll bring it.

Dad and I ventured out in our station wagon to a very exotic place I had never heard of called Lancaster and ended up at a scary stone house in the middle of nowhere that was very dark inside.  The Amish man and my father placed me at the end of a very long table with two long benches where 12 Amish children sat, with a mother standing at the sink washing dishes.  No one spoke to me.  No one spoke English.  They all spoke Pennsylvania Dutch.  These were not Mennonites; these were old school 1970s Amish BEFORE they were doing reality shows.

“NOW DON’T GO ANYWHERE!  I” LL BE BACK!”  my father said.  Don’t go anywhere?  Where would I go?

I stared back at these kids, in my 1970s Garanimals blue red green orange white and black striped shirt, clutching my lunch pail, trying my hardest to cover Cher’s midriff with my tiny little hand thinking, Where am I and where is my father?

Eventually Dad came back with the Amish man and announced that the peacocks were in the car and we could go.  That’s when it occurred to me that we had not arrived with any kind of peacock transport.  The peacocks would be traveling with us inside the station wagon in the backseat all tied up.

Dad said we could stop at McDonald’s.  That was a treat.    As we got our food, Dad said, “Now, we have to sit at that table by the window so we can watch the car in case the peacocks escape.” 

“OK. Wait what.  Uh.  Escape?  Is this something we should be worried about?”  Well, I don’t like that Amish man’s ropes.  I should have brought some from home. I have better ropes.

We ate, got in the car - And sure enough the peacocks got loose inside the car on the way home after McDonald’s.  So if you ever wondered what it was like to be John Stoffa’s son, picture yourself driving down Rt. 22 in a Pinto Station Wagon while being attacked by albino peacocks – your Sonny and Cher lunch pail your only defense.

 Later that year, my father announced I was getting a pet.  “Really?  What kind?”  “A steer,” he said. “What’s a steer?”   “Well, its like a cow but more fun. “ OH OK.  Days later my steer arrived; my mother named him Sir Loin.  He was cute.  I asked my father, “What can I do with it?   Can I ride it?”  No.  Can I play with it?” No.  “Well then, what do we do with it?  “We castrate it.”  CASTRATE?  That’s another new word!   And thus, I acquired a skill that has actually proven valuable later in life. Whenever I am at a party or corporate event and someone says, “Let’s go around the room and mention something that no one knows about us, I always say, “I can castrate a steer.”  That usually shuts down the exercise, especially in Miami.

Having a steer wasn’t as fun as my dad made it out to be.  Sir Loin just ate and got bigger and bigger.  Eventually, he was up to 1200 pounds.  Our farm was located right next to my elementary school so I could see Sir Loin from my classroom attached to his stake, eating all day.

One day, I looked out the window at school and Sir Loin wasn’t there.  Then I heard some small children screaming in terror on the playground.  Teachers were running down the halls.  Then suddenly, who lumbers past my school window but Sir Loin.  How embarrassing.  “That’s Jeff Stoffa’s cow?” some kid yelled.  What? Mine?  I’ve never seen that thing before in my life.  But everyone knew that Sir Loin was mine, so the principal called my mother who called my father who came and rescued Asa Packer School from the attack of Sir Loin.  So if you ever wondered what it was like to have John Stoffa as a dad, you can also picture yourself as an 8 year old watching your dad in a three piece suit leading your steer back home by the chain while apologizing to all the teachers. 

“JEFFREY Get up!  We are going to plant sunflowers!!!!”…………………………….”why ?”  Well, when they bloom we will cut the stalks about put them on a table by the road with a sign that says “honor system: and people will put five cents in a cigar box.  ………” Why are we doing this, have you lost your job?”

There are countless stories like this.  When it came to my father’s projects, it was best to just go with the flow and remain as still as possible.  This is also good advice for a bear attack.

My father liked John Philip Sousa

Peanuts

Hot dogs

His model A Ford,

WWII and Holocaust history

Big Band music

Marching band music

Playing his trumpet

His favorite move star was Jeanne Simmons

His favorite president was LBJ

He loved Penn State his alma mater

Parades

Funerals

Viewings

Obituaries

To his siblings he was Jack, to people from his hometown he was “Zeke” or “Yonko.”

He had no middle name.

Volleyball

Basketball

Gossiping

He loved Northampton County.

His favorite city was Easton

His favorite greeting was “Do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?”

Reading the Morning Call

Reading the Express Times

Vacations – his favorite:   when my parents went to the USSR in 1976 in a special culture exchange and he smuggled Hershey’s chocolate in and gave it to little kids in Red Square when the Soviet Tour Guides weren’t looking.

He loved Mountain Dew

My father was truly a kind and good man with  many incredible qualities.  He was a much better man than I will ever be.

My father was loving and affectionate.  When I was a very small child before my brother was born and I would get into bed with my parents, I wouldn’t get in the middle, I would always get in on the edge inside my father’s arms.

He was humble.  I recall my mother spending months bugging my father to get his portrait done as the new County Executive.  He had no interest.  He wasn’t vain at all. It wasn’t until she reminded him that someone gets paid for that painting and he was standing in the way of someone’s livelihood; then he did it.

 He was funny, in a dry way.  Whenever my brother Greg and I had new friends over for dinner, he’d say, “You’d better eat your peas or else Mrs. Stoffa will [holds up his hand missing two fingers]…….”   “John!  Stop that!  They’re going to think you’re serious!”    “I am serious.  Eat your peas or else.”

My father was honest.  When he was running for county exec either the first or second time, I can’t remember.  We had spent all day putting lawn signs out.  Just he and I.  The next morning, we woke up to find that everyone of our signs had disappeared.  This hardly phased my father.  I was pissed. I immediately jumped in my car and went out in broad daylight pulling out all the signs of his opponent.  Exactly the same number that we had missing.  When I returned, my father was very angry with me.  “Jeffrey, I don’t do things like that.  Besides, you don’t know who did that. Maybe it wasn’t my opponent”  He made me go out and put all the signs back.  I told him that with his talent for administration and my ruthless thirst for vengeance, we could have reached the White House. 

My father was understanding.  During the worst of the Trump years when everyone was at each others throats, Dad enjoyed just asking Trump supporters why they like Trump without judging or criticizing. He just listened and tried to understand their point of view.

My father was frugal.  He would waste nothing.  I was the opposite so every night he’d go through the garbage looking for things I threw away that someone could use which often included clothes.  It was not unusual to see him working on the farm in his 60s wearing some wild 80s outfit of mine I had bought at the Lehigh Valley Mall with wild velour colorful lapels.  He looked like an aging member of Duran Duran.  “This is a perfectly good sweatshirt.  I don’t know why you threw it away.”

But what I think I most admired about my father is how he treated people.

My father surrounded himself with a menagerie of odd people and I’m not just talking about Bernie O Hare and Ron Angle. 

For instance, we had a man name Rudy who Dad let rent out a barn stall for his pony.  Rudy must have been 85, he had no wife, kids, no family.   All he had was his pony which was so old it couldn’t walk much.  He’d come every day and just sit with his pony and keep him company.  My mother and I never knew anything about Rudy because we couldn’t understand him when he spoke; I assume he had mental disabilities.  He was part of our farm for years.  But Dad talked to him all the time; Dad could understand what he was saying.

Then there was Sally Beier, a schizophrenic who dad counseled early in his career that he got close to.  She’d call the house every week for decades until she died.  “IS YOUR FATHER THERE??>?? I NEED TO TALK TO HIM!”

Dad would take me to Hogar Crea on the weekends when I was very young.  Usually because something structural in the building had to be looked at but he always introduced me to the recovering addicts and explained to my why they were there.  Like Princess Diana taking Prince William to homeless shelters, Dad wanted me to see that not everyone worked for Bethlehem Steel and lived in a split level.

Then there was my favorite, Jake the Grinder, or as he said his name CHAKE THE GRINTER.  When dad planted field corn, this guy would grind it up.  My parents would be at the Governor’s ball in Harrisburg and Jake would come to the door and say,

“Its me its Jake the grinder.

‘Yes, Jake, I remember you.

Vhere’s your pa?”

“He’s in Harrisburg at the Govern/….He’s in Harrisburg.”

Vell, I come to grind the corn so I can come next week but I don’t know should I come on Monday or Wednesday cause of Tuesday cause Tuesday is the Forf of CHOO LIE

My father treated Sally Beier and Rudy and Jake the Grinder and the guys at Hogar Crea no differently than he treated the governor.  He looked for the goodness and kindness in people and never noticed peoples accents, their socioeconomic background, their education, what color or religion they were, or who they slept with.  He judged everyone by merit.  I have never met anyone that remotely resembled my father and I don’t think I ever will.

My father didn’t like everybody.  But if he didn’t like you, it was because of something you said, or did.  Not because of something you were.  He was an example to us all.

I want to end with an anonymous poem….

The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.

Just as a magician takes rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his body.

And the rivers of his hands, overflowed with good deeds.