Political Wife Effi Barry Stands by Controversial Husband

There was no question in anyone’s mind that Effi Barry would do exactly what she did last week: stand by her man, as he faced the most difficult days of his life, and she, no doubt, the most difficult days of her own.

A picture of composure, Effi Barry sat next to her husband, District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry--arrested on a drug charge and now seeking help at an addiction center in Florida--as they prayed last Sunday morning, clasping his left hand between her slender, polished hands.

She stood by him as he spoke of his “human weaknesses” to a media throng, then lauded him in front of the crowd for admitting his problem. She politely offered her cheek as he leaned to kiss her.

It’s not a comfortable place for the private and reserved woman. Years ago, a close friend described Effi Barry as “an open wound” because of her difficulty dealing with the pressures of public life.

But she’s been here before--through the nearly 12 years of their marriage, in fact--publicly proclaiming her support of and belief in the controversial three-term mayor, defending him against allegations and rumors regarding political corruption, drug involvement and intimate associations with other women.

“It’s evident that it certainly hurts her,” says Jeffrey Gildenhorn, co-chairman of Mayor Barry’s finance team and a longtime family friend. “She evidently has a great deal of tolerance. I think she recognizes the tremendous burden and everyday strains that go along with the position of being mayor of the most observed city in the world. She’s more tolerant and more supportive than one would be under the circumstances in a normal marriage.”

Many who know Mrs. Barry, a tall, thin, poised woman of 45 and the mother of the couple’s 9-year-old son, Christopher, describe her as exceedingly strong, deeply spiritual and fiercely devoted to the family.

Is she as fiercely devoted to her husband?

“It seems like it, doesn’t it?” says one source close to the Barrys. “But I’m not sure if it’s him, or it’s them. They’re a trio, they’re a family, and family is very important to her.” This source, who asked not to be identified, believes Mrs. Barry would stay with her husband through very tough times--”but not to her detriment or her son’s detriment.”

Last Sunday, the Rev. David H. Eaton, pastor at All Souls Unitarian Church, said in his sermon that Effi Barry was “concerned about Christopher because in his school, other children had told him they knew his father was a dope addict.”

Christopher, who left the family’s home recently with a coat over his head to shield himself from the media, attends a private school in northwest Washington.

Although her poise and graciousness is often noted, some see Mrs. Barry, who declined to be interviewed for this story, as being cool or aloof. “She has a sort of regal attitude,” a former Barry aide says. “Those of us who were employees were like peons.”

Through the years, Mrs. Barry has brushed aside, if not away, the rumors of her husband’s dalliances with other women. Several years ago, she showed up at a Cabinet meeting--as she did from time to time--when her husband was thought to be involved with a woman on his staff.

“She would be there when there was the need to put on a good front,” a former member of the mayor’s staff says. “She was there to lend support, sort of ‘rah rah,’ stand by your man.”

And in a long interview with a local television reporter a few years ago, she remarked on the mayor’s admitted “personal relationship” with convicted cocaine dealer Karen Johnson, saying, “He states that it was a nonintimate affair, and if he chooses to describe it as that, I will accept it. . . . What I blame him for is indiscretion.”

Gildenhorn likens Mrs. Barry to the wives of Gary Hart, the former Colorado Democratic senator, and President John F. Kennedy, saying, “women who get together with such powerful men know that (controversy) goes with the territory. It’s not that they expect it, but they’re prepared for it.”

But perhaps Effi Barry, a self-described “loner” and private person, was unprepared for the intense scrutiny and media attention that ensued when the Toledo, Ohio, native signed on as Mrs. Marion Barry in February, 1978. It was her second marriage, his third.

A graduate of Hampton Institute in Virginia, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics, and the City College of New York, where she earned a master’s degree in health education, she herself became the subject of controversy, criticism and rumors through her years in the fishbowl of public life--a fishbowl she and her husband once described as being filled with “barracudas, piranhas, alligators, crocodiles.”

When the mayor and his new wife bought their home in 1979, they were questioned about the discounted mortgage they received from the bank where Mrs. Barry sat on the board, and later agreed to pay the undiscounted rate.

In 1982, Mrs. Barry was criticized for accepting $1,150 worth of stylish clothes from a paid lobbyist who had contacts with the mayor.

In 1986, it was revealed that a Barry aide used $1,500 in District funds to pay part of the bill for a fur coat the mayor gave his wife. The mayor then repaid the money.

And two years ago, Mrs. Barry was criticized for bringing along a number of city employees, including a police security detail and a government photographer, to a private birthday party for her son and his friends held at an amusement park.

Even Mrs. Barry’s mother, Polly Lee Harris, who has lived with the Barrys, was thrown in the fishbowl when the now 59-year-old woman was convicted on arson charges two years ago.