One of the traits that made Toni Smith successful in politics is illustrated by a small story, not one that made headlines about disputes or shenanigans in the York City Council chambers.
It was in the fall of 2003, and a city couple had been trying, unsuccessfully, for weeks to get a night’s sleep, disturbed by what they described as “rowdyism” in their neighborhood, with a certain house as the source of the disorder. They tried calling the cops, but it didn’t help. The rowdyism continued long into the early morning.
After repeated calls to the police department – which, understaffed at the time, was busy with more pressing matters than rowdy youth – they were told to call city Councilwoman Toni Smith, who told them to call her any time, day or night, when they experienced sleeplessness caused by disorderly youth.
They made good on the offer early one morning, calling Smith at 2 a.m. She called the police department and, the next day, Smith paid a visit to the owner of the house.
“We have been able to sleep peacefully ever since,” Bradley Lecrone wrote in a letter to the editor of the York Daily Record in November 2003.
In 16 years of serving on City Council, Smith earned a reputation as a hell raiser, someone who was going to speak her mind and take on anyone in her quest to do what she believed was right.
But that anecdote, of a time when Smith went out of her way to help one family, shows what called her to politics.
Whether it was helping a single mother facing eviction, or taking people to the food bank, or just listening to the concerns of her neighbors, her daughter Sandy Trevethan said, she just wanted to help people, to make the city a better place. And if people got in her way, she said, God help them because she would not back down.
“She was known as the person to call when you didn’t know where to turn,” Trevethan said. “In her house, the phone was ringing constantly.”
She would always answer.
And listen.
‘A force of nature’
Antonietta Smith was a diminutive woman, barely five feet tall, if that. But in York City politics, she might as well have been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
She had a big personality. She could be tough, but she also had heart. She used her voice to speak up for those who felt voiceless in City Hall. One former Democratic elected official wrote in tribute that she “helped” a generation of mayors govern the city. That was incorrect. To put it politely, she was a pain in the behind to them, whether she liked them or not.
“She was a force of nature, to say the least,” said Charlie Bacas, a former York Gazette and Daily reporter who went on to work as chief of staff of former Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey and was active in Democratic politics. “At the Gazette, I coined a term, rowhouse reality. She got that. She knew what was going on in the rowhouses.”
As those who fought with her can attest, she left her mark.
Former Mayor Kim Bracey, who had known Smith since 1994, said she was fearless. She recalled some years back when residents on South Queen Street complained about neighbors setting off fireworks, Smith and former Councilman Cameron Texter immediately drove to the neighborhood and convinced the the pyrotechnic miscreants to knock it off.
“She would approach people other people did not have the courage to approach,” Bracey said. “She was someone who rolled up her sleeves and went to work hard for her community. She always did what she said she was going to do.”
Former Mayor John Brenner recalled her as “this short woman – what was she, four-feet-eight? – wearing her little dress, her hands going a mile a minute who would absolutely tell you what was on her mind. Force of nature, absolutely.”
Brenner said, “It was her personality. She was warm, loving and and friendly, but boy, you didn’t want to cross her. She’d tell you about it, up one side and down the other. But it always ended well. She still invited you into her kitchen and made you the best pasta you ever had in your life.”
She largely faded from politics in recent years, though her passion for it never diminished, as she faced some health issues.
On June 18, she passed away at age 92, leaving behind legions of people who loved her and her passion for the city and those who, well, didn’t.
Former Mayor Michael Helfrich was among the latter. He defeated Smith in 2011 for a city council seat in a write-in campaign, ending her 16-year stint on the city’s legislative body. She went down with a fight, challenging Helfrich’s victory in court and dredging up the mayor’s past, which included a drug conviction years ago, in the process. They exchanged insults and name-calling.
Asked whether Helfrich wanted to say something on her death, he replied simply: “No.”
‘She would fight with anyone’
Smith was born Sept. 22, 1933, in Rome, the daughter of Alberto Caldonazzo, who was descended from Italian nobility, and Giuseppina Manchia, who, like her daughter, was a diminutive woman with a huge personality, Smith’s daughter said.
By the time Smith was born, Italian nobility had faded into history, and she grew up in a country ruled by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. (Smith was not a fan and, on occasion, her political opponents could count on being compared with Il Duce.) “She always said she was involved because her family knew how horrible the dictator Mussolini was,” Brenner said.
The country of her youth was wracked by war and deprivation. During Italy’s flirtation with the Nazis, her daughter said, her family hid people being sought by the regime’s storm troops for the crime of being an enemy of the state, mostly by being Jewish.
Snith left her home country for America in the early 1950s, leaving her family behind. “She was really on her own here,” Trevethan said. “She came here alone. She didn’t know the language. She felt like a fish out of water.”
She became a naturalized citizen in 1960. She never forgot her home country, but like all of those who came to America to take part in this experiment in democracy, she loved her adopted country. (She retained her heavy Italian accent, something that put her political opponents off-guard when she skewered them.)
But Smith had her mother’s moxie, for want of a better word. She was charming and vivacious and could make friends wherever she went, her daughter said. She was intensely interested in people.
She got her hairdresser’s license and opened a shop in York’s Devers neighborhood. She married Ed Smith, a former city police officer, and, as her daughter wrote in her obituary, “what a pair they were,” Ed being more taciturn and Toni being, well, Toni. (Ed Smith, who, as a city police officer, travelled to New York in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks to assist in the recovery effort, died in January 2018.)
When Smith turned to politics, her daughter said it took the family by surprise. It grew from her hairdressing shop. She would talk to her customers, listen to their stories and complaints, and think that she should do something to help.
Some years before she ran for office, a child had drowned in Willis Run, a small creek that meanders through the city and was a magnet for kids. Smith was among those who pressed the city to erect a fence along the creek to keep kids out of its deceptively treacherous waters.
She became active in city politics, initially going door-to-door for local candidates and becoming a Democratic committeewoman. “She was probably the best Democratic activist in York in the last 50 years,” Brenner said. “She worked with people. She talked to every single voter at the polls, and everybody else.”
Smith ran for city council in 1995 and won easily. By the time she ran for office, it seemed everybody in town already knew her.
“She was intensely interested in people,” her daughter said. “People felt comfortable talking to her. They knew she was really listening to them. She just had enormous empathy for people who were struggling.”
She was adept at what they call retail politics. In her day, it was just doing the job, representing your people and helping them, whether it was making a phone call or finding another way to help. Bacas recalled that he was on Smith’s list of people who could help. She would send people to Bacas’ home, and they would tell him that “Ms. Toni” said he could help them, often to the tune of “20 bucks or 100 bucks.”
She was known as a fighter who would say what was on her mind, whether those in power liked it or not. “She didn’t pull any punches,” her daughter said. “She would fight with anyone. She didn’t care who it was. She wanted to fight for things she felt were important. She wanted to make things happen.”
‘York is a better place because of her life’
Current York Mayor Sandie Walker knew Smith as “Ms. Toni,” the mayor wrote in a tribute posted on social media.
“Ms. Toni lived an extraordinary life.” Walker wrote.
She recalled Smith’s service to the city and how “she fought tirelessly for her community and helped countless people along the way.”
The mayor wrote, “On a personal level, Ms.Toni was instrumental in encouraging me to become civically engaged and pursue public service, from serving as a School Board Director to becoming Mayor. Her guidance, friendship, and unwavering support meant more to me than words can express.
“I’ll always remember her passion, determination, and the genuine care she showed for others. She never stopped advocating for her community and always spoke from the heart,” the mayor wrote. “Ms. Toni was truly one of a kind. York is a better place because of her life.”
Brenner said, “It’s the end of an era. There’s nobody like her.”
Funeral arrangements
A Service and Celebration of Life will be announced in the near future, according to Smith’s obituary.
Arrangements by Etzweiler Funerals and Cremation, Inc., 1111 East Market Street, York, PA 17403.
