In the early part of the 20th century, Louis Bolecek immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovkia. He settled in Pennsylvania where he met and married Mary Lopashovski also from Slovakia. Due to health concerns, his doctor advised him to move to the country. He and his cousin moved to the South River with their families but later Louis decided to purchase a farm of his own in 1919, he and his wife and three children bought Hunter’s Hill Farm on Route 2 north of Bowling Green. Eventually Louis and Mary had six children living on the Old Caroline County Fox Hunting Plantation as it once was called. Over the years, the girls married and moved away. Bill remained to help his parents, and after serving in the Army during WW II returned and married a local girl, Ann Michaliga. According to Gloria, the family tore down “the old rickety house and built a new one”. This home and land remained a Bolecek homestead until the house was taken down in 1985 when Gloria built her own home on the site.
Gloria, her sister Barbara, and brother Bill grew up on this 150-acre farm that produced grain, corn, soybeans, and hay. In earlier years, tobacco was a main crop along with beef cattle. The children helped out on the farm with their special chores. Gloria helped with the gardening. She canned fruit and vegetable in season and at 15 years old, operated a tractor and other farm equipment and helped harvest hay during its growing seasons. The Bolecek grandparents continued to live with the family until the elderly grandparents moved back to Pennsylvania in the early 1950’s to be closer to their eldest daughter.
Gloria remembered when her niece, Emily, visited. On one warm evening they laid outside and watched the heavens. In the clear sky, shooting stars appeared and she recalls her niece saying, “Aunt Gloria you have a million stars over your yard.”