Obituary of Hugo Bolba

Survivors include 3 daughters: Martha Ciesielski of Independence, IA, Kristina Bolba of Burbank, CA and Karoly (Scott) Blume of Dubuque, IA; 7 grandchildren; Ashley and Austin Blume, Martin, Matthew and Miles Hogan, Russell and Rodney Ciesielski; a great granddaughter, Courtney Hogan; 2 brothers: Henry and Louis Bolba, both of Budapest, Hungary, a sister: Matilda Bolba of Austria. He was preceded in death by his parents and a great grandson, Jordan Hogan. Hugo was born on August 25, 1936 in Kezmark, Czechoslovakia, the son of Louis and Mary (Vasa) Bolba. He graduated from college in Czechoslovakia and immigrated to the United States in 1957. Hugo worked, among other occupations, as a veterinarian's assistant, dance teacher, Fuller Brush and vacuum cleaner salesman and telephone company draftsman, before becoming owner and operator of House of Imports in Dyersville. A pattern-maker by trade, he joined the Hungarian state circus as a young man in Budapest, working with snakes and alligators, training brown bears, and working acts. At the end of the circus season in 1956, he was eligible for military service. His father, a Russian prisoner during WWII, told him to get out of Hungary. Leaving Budapest, he crossed the Hungarian border under cover of darkness into Austria. In Vienna he found a job baling junk steel in a railroad yard. Being "all alone in Vienna" in 1957 he decided to come to the U.S. Because of his previous experience with animals, he went to work for a veterinarian in Philadelphia. The two hardest things for him were the English language and the food. He later moved to Dallas, TX and got a job as a press feeder for a paper factory, and then headed for Chicago where he got a job as a draftsman for General Telephone Company. A year later, the company moved and he stayed and went to work for the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, where he met and married the mother of his children. One of his students was a grocery fortune heir who hired Bolba to teach in his Palm Beach home until the winter season ended. A string of odd jobs and a trip to California ensued and the Bolba family settled in Dyersville where he gave up a traveling salesman job and started his own business, House of Imports store in Dyersville and later opened Hugo's Restaurant, which he ran from 1976 to 1991. After that, Hugo worked at a restaurant in Galena, worked for Walt Disney on Ice and was a chef at Orlando Regional Medical Center in Florida. Hugo appeared in the movies "Fist" and "Take This Job And Shove It." Special thanks to special friends, Derek and Lynn Vanderzyl and family for looking out for Dad, and to Hospice of Dubuque and Dr. Krish for their compassion and support during Hugo's final days. Memorials are preferred