Stoltzfus' father was principal of a boys' school in Aleppo, Syria, and later president of the Beirut College for Women.

Stoltzfus was tutored in Aleppo before going to the American Community School in Beirut and learned to speak Arabic and French at an early age.

After his graduation in 1949, Stoltzfus failed his first attempt at the Foreign Service exam; his childhood abroad left him without a strong knowledge of U.S.

[3] His first post was in Alexandria, Egypt, where he worked as an economic officer and reported on the production of flax and other natural resources.

After doing economic reporting in Benghazi, Libya, Stoltzfus was assigned to Kuwait, where he did consular work with Palestinian refugees applying for visas to the United States.