Family Stories
Our first family story is about Judy Tiffin. Bob Tiffin's lovely wife and high school sweetheart.
Editors Note: Upon spending time with Judy Tiffin over a delicious lunch at one of her favorite restaurants The Factory Store & Café,I quickly learned a list of wonderful attributes one can recognize in the first lady of Tiffin Motorhomes. When sitting down in conversation with Judy Tiffin, Bob’s wife, it is immediately evident why Bob fell in love with her. Judy is intelligent, interesting, kind, creative, humorous and humble.
Judy and Bob grew up just three blocks from one another in the small northwest Alabama town of Red Bay, but never knew one another. Judy’s family owned a grocery store in town and Bob’s family owned a supply store. It is for certain that their families crossed paths, but it wasn’t until high school that Judy and Bob would begin what would become a lifelong partnership. Judy laughingly recalls that she wasn’t interested in boys when she saw that Bob was interested in her. She had her girlfriends and Judy said they just didn’t pay any attention to boys when they were younger.
“I remember the first time I saw Bob,” Judy recalled. “He was carrying his trombone case to band practice.” A few years later he made a routine of stopping by the Dairy Bar in downtown to pick up an afternoon treat and to visit with Judy who worked there after school. “We started dating and the rest as they say, is history,”Judy said.
The young couple had watched as both of their fathers operated successful businesses in Red Bay and had developed their own entrepreneurial spirit. Judy has many memories of her family’s grocery store. One that stuck out to her the most was when she discovered that Santa wasn’t real! Judy had hoped so very much that Santa would bring her a Bonnie Braids doll (from the Dick Tracy comics).
One day she happened to be in the store and behind the counter she spotted a brand new Dick Tracy doll. She says she questioned her Daddy about the doll and he tried his best to explain it away, but Judy knew right then and there Santa wasn’t real. Her heart, like any child who loved the thought of good ole’ Saint Nick, was downtrodden. She laughed about the story as she recollected her childhood and the special moments that shaped who she is today.
Red Bay has always been a small town with a great deal of industry. Many families in the town are from hard workers who have carved out successful businesses for themselves. Judy and Bob would become one of those families who have made Red Bay very well known in the region for its small town enterprise.
After Judy married Bob they would go on to work in the cotton gin business side by side. Judy’s job was to buy cotton for a cotton company in a small building just outside the gin. Sometimes, when the gin’s bookkeeper was absent, she did the book keeping inside the building that housed the cotton gin.
She said it was terribly loud and awfully hot. Imagine being inside of a building in the Alabama heat in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s where a central air system was yet to exist. It took a lot of brains and determination to stick to it and Judy did, she stayed right beside Bob in or around the gin, working every day.
Bob was determined to make the gin a success, even after he sustained quite a severe injury to his arm. Judy recalls the day when Bob’s arm got caught in a machine at the gin. Bob's arm was so heavily damaged that it required skin grafts. Fortunately, right in the tiny town of Red Bay there was doctor who was determined to perform this incredibly skillful procedure - a procedure that, in that time period, would have even been a challenge in a metropolitan hospital.
The doctor was able to graft skin from Bob’s leg to place on the upper portion of his arm where the skin had been stripped bare. Bob stayed in the hospital for three weeks and one day.
As Bob was being released from the hospital, the doctor told him he was not to return to work for a few weeks. Judy says as soon as they got home from the hospital, Bob told Judy to go and get plastic wrap and a plastic bag – he was going back to work that day! He instructed her to wrap it around his arm. Judy was reluctant to see Bob off, but she did as he asked and he worked right on. This is the spirit and determination that runs so deep through this good family. Bob has never given up and Judy has been right there by his side, believing in him.
Judy Tiffin is humble when she is given praise for her honest hard work. She gives all the credit to Bob for many of their successes. It takes a good woman to make a good man better and Judy has done just that. It is quite obvious that the partnership they developed over the years of working side by side has made them both a very special couple. Judy has never wavered in her support of Bob and his endeavors. She raised no objections when Bob came to her with the idea of building motorhomes. She says she thought it was “quite an interesting idea” and was onboard day one!
When the time came to figure out a name for this new motorhome Bob knew he wanted to come up with a name that began with the letter A so that it would be the first one listed in directories. Judy explained that she “took piano lessons and knew that Allegro was a musical term,” it was a name that illustrated movement and the family liked it. After that, the name Allegro was a part of RV history.