By Rod Lee

Not everyone who lives to be one hundred years old is treated to the kind of birthday celebration Anne Vajcovec experienced at the Killdeer Island Club in Webster on June 25th.

Then again, in the opinion of Ms. Vajcovec’s daughter Susan Hofeller and the rest of the family including Ms. Hofeller’s siblings and Anne’s grandchildren and great grandchildren, the “Queen of Our Hearts” was worth the weeks of preparation that went into organizing the event. More than one hundred people showed up to offer well wishes to Ms. Vajcovec—an extremely likeable and active centenarian who still cooks for herself (real mashed potatoes and steak with onions are two of her favorites), who also still belongs to the Tuesday Club, and who still attends meetings of the Killdeer Island Club, and listens to audiobooks).

 Above, Anne on her throne at her birthday party, joined by her children Tom, Susan, John and Mark.

“It was amazing,” Ms. Hofeller said. “Everyone hung around. I thought it was going to be come and go, relatives we don’t see that often. But people stayed. We talked mom into singing ‘I’m tired, and I want to go home.’ We went through seventy-two bottles of wine. Before we sang each of mom’s four children had something to say about her. There was a special cake, mom looking at the sunset. She rose to the occasion, she was sitting there from one o’clock to four, she talked to every single person.”

 Anne with her daughter (and head cheerleader) Susan Hofeller.

Much of Anne Louise (Kleya) Vajcovec’s story is recounted in the book “Only the Lucky Grow Old: Reflections on Life from Those Over Ninety,” written by Kristine Fontaine, who calls Ms. Vajcovec “Auntie Anne.” 

Ms. Vajcovec was born to immigrant parents in East Douglas.

As Ms. Fontaine writes, “both of her parents came over from Czechoslovakia and married in the U.S. At present, she is the only surviving sibling. Her brother passed away at age sixty-eight of cancer, but her sister, who was hoping to live a long life, was granted her request. She lived to be one hundred years old.

“When Anne was a child, she remembers having to use an outhouse until the hurricane of 1938 came and blew it down. After that happened, her parents decided to make a bathroom inside the house, which required much renovation. Before having the bathroom, they did not shower, but more or less took sponge baths.”

Ms. Vajcovec also told Ms. Fontaine of the time a storm struck. Anne’s mother was pumping water when lightning hit the transformer in the yard. She was electrocuted “and fell to the ground.” Anne and her sister were in the kitchen with forks in their hands and because of the electricity in the air could not let go of them until they ran to a neighbor’s house to call the doctor.

At the time, Ms. Vajcovec told Ms. Fontaine, there was no paper money, only gold, which Anne’s mother kept in her bra. When the bolt hit, the gold in her bra caused burns on her chest and she was hospitalized. Fortunately, she survived.

Still in reasonably good health, Ms. Vajcovec told her niece she is not afraid of dying. “You don’t know when it’s going to happen, but I am ready whenever my time comes,” she said. “I can’t wait to go to heaven where I will have nothing to worry about!”

  Interviewed for this article on June 8th, Anne expressed gratitude for her daughter Sue, who has provided her with a spacious basement apartment in Sue and Chuck Hofeller’s home overlooking North Pond on Webster Lake. “She has the full downstairs,” Ms. Hofeller said.

  Everyone who knows Anne Vajcovec is aware too that she had “a wonderful career as a surgical nurse,” as Ms. Hofeller puts it. “She was requested by many doctors. They nixed her orders to go overseas during World War II because they wanted her here.”

  Anne met and married Marty Vajcovec, who saved her from a stormy relationship in California with her former fiancé.

  “One day we were out at Watch Hill in Rhode Island sunbathing. That’s when Marty asked me to marry him,” Anne told Ms. Fontaine. “I thought to myself he will make a good husband, and a good father. So I said okay, and that’s how it happened.” They were married for fifty-three years before Marty passed away.  “It wasn’t long enough,” she said. “It should have been more.”

  Sue Hofeller delights in her mom’s longevity, and the affection in which she is held by loved ones.

  “Every day at 4:30 the cocktail bell on the porch rings,” Ms. Hofeller said. “When the grandchildren are here they say ‘grandma, is it time to ring the cocktail bell?’”

Contact Rod Lee at [email protected] or 774-232-2999.