Gloria Jean Hays was born in Gays Mills, Wisconsin, raised in the Kickapoo River Valley. Though she lived in the Twin Cities area for most of her adult life, Gloria proudly claimed her Kickapoogian roots and valued friendships from her youth. Her mother was a one-room school teacher in the valley and the family lived in Readstown above her father’s hardware store until WWII. The family moved to Denver during the second world war where Gloria attended Morey Junior High and learned about big city life. The family moved back to the Gays Mills homestead after the war. Gloria was a 1949 graduate of Gays Mills High School and attended college classes in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.