Former Hammond councilwoman Bobbi Costa, 88, remembered for her wit, Packer fandom

Several years ago, when Dave Gearman hosted comedy shows as fundraisers for domestic violence shelter Haven House, Bobbi Costa wanted to perform a set.

Gearman, who Costa talked into serving on its executive board, would’ve liked nothing better than to let one of the women instrumental in getting Haven House off the ground perform. Then he heard her jokes.

“I told her, ‘Bobbi, this is a family show, and that’s filthy’,” Gearman recalled, laughing. “I couldn’t let her do it, and she eventually understood.”

Bernadette “Bobbi” Costa, formerly of Hammond, died suddenly August 30. She was 88.

Costa, who served was the second woman elected to serve on the Hammond Common Council and the first woman to serve as its president, prided herself on being honest “to a fault,” her oldest daughter, Kris Sakelaris, of Cedar Lake, said. She got her start in politics in 1991 when she approached City Hall about an issue and didn’t get an answer, Sakelaris said.

Hammond Common Councilman Dave Woerpel, D-5, met Costa during that time. In a social media post, he described their first meeting as caustic yet friendly.

“Her first words to me were, ‘You may not know me, nor do I like you, but aren’t you the mailman that delivers 169th Street?’ I said, “Yeah, and I don’t like you either, but I noticed you’re a Packer fan. What can I do for you?’” Woerpel said. “She said, ‘What’s the chances you can get me some yard sign locations on 169th?”

“I said, ‘For you, the chances are slim and none, but because you’re a Packer fan, how many do you want?’”

“She and I became good friends after that, and she always said (our first meeting) was a joke, but I honestly don’t think it was,” Woerpel told the Post-Tribune, laughing.

That exchange described Costa perfectly, Sakelaris said.

“She was who she was, and you never had to guess what she thought, because she would tell you,” Sakelaris said. “She always made public service about her constituents. Whenever we took her someplace, we would always laugh and take bets on how many people she would know when we got there. And she spent her life teaching us the importance of doing the quiet things that no one saw, but people appreciated.”

As a mom, Costa “was freaking crazy” and had special, individual relationships with each of her grandkids, always shocking them with the funny things she texted them, Sakelaris said. And of the things she loved most in the world, above all was her late husband, Louis, and then for reasons not even she could explain, the Green Bay Packers.

“We have no idea where that came from because she has no ties to Green Bay,” Sakelaris said. “One of the last voicemails I got from her was about the Bears, though: I’m paraphrasing, but she said, ‘I won’t be alive to see (the proposed stadium) built, but Go Bears … until they play the Packers’.”

“I know she’s up there dancing with my dad now and looking at her life and thinking, ‘Not too shabby.’”

Gearman, who most recently ran for the Lake County Council, said he knew Costa through his mom before she recruited him to serve on the Haven House executive board. She’d become a trusted advisor of his ever since.

“I could always call her for someone to listen, and her advice was always amazing, but always stern: ‘Hey Kid, what’re doing?’” he said. “And I always wanted to hear her stories; there were so many of them. I was like a kid with my head propped up in my hands, just listening.”

Bobbi Costa is survived by her four children: Kris (James) Sakelaris, Kyle (late Therese) Costa, Kelli (John) Lucito and Kara (Tim) Meyer; six grandchildren; Matthew Costa, Michael (Danielle) Costa, Bernadette “BK” Sakelaris, Dominic Lucito, Madison Meyer and Jack Meyer; brother Wallace “Randy” (Judith) Peters, Jr; nephews Gregory Peters and Anthony Costa; and nieces Phyllis Fleming and Deneen Costa. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 59 years, Louis Costa; her parents, Wallace and Alida Peters; and her brother, Malcolm Peters.

Funeral services will be private, but family and friends are invited per her instruction to celebrate her life from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. September 11 at The Emerald Green at the Lost Marsh Golf Course, 1001 129th Street, Hammond. In lieu of flowers, Costa and her family encourage a donation to Haven House in Bobbi’s memory.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

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