Olive Lena Morin Roy

Centennial of the birth of Olive Lena Morin Roy Born July 31, 1914 on the family farm in Rooks County, Damar, KS, tenth of eleven siblings, children of Stanislas Morin and Rosanna Hebert. Both parents were immigrants from Canada. They arrived in Rooks County at the turn of the century in this predominantly French Canadian settlement, founded in 1888. Olive married John Felix Roy at the now historical St. Joseph Catholic Church, in Damar, on August 23, 1932. They are parents of ten children. Olive´s mother, Rosanna, died in childbirth when Olive was only three years old. Olive and her one-year-old brother, Levi, were cared for by their father Stanislas on his 480 acre farm near Damar until his death in the summer of 1929. Olive lived and worked with her married sisters until her adolescent years when she attended the first and only Catholic boarding school in Kansas – Sacred Heart Academy in Manhattan, KS. Due to financial crises the country experienced following stock market crash of that year she was financially unable to continue her studies. Upon returning to the Damar area, and through fortunate circumstances, “I met Johnny,” she often said. The couple made their home and reared their children eight miles west of Stockton, with schooling in Webster and Stockton. Olive enjoyed nurturing vegetable and flower gardens. After their children moved away from home she often traveled to visit them including Brazil. She also went to Jerusalem, Mexico and Canada. She cultivated interests in many handicrafts including decoupage, water-color painting, making greeting cards, pressing flowers, bread-baking, wheat-weaving, quilting and sewing. Many of these she gave as gifts to family members and friends alike. Olive was also an avid letter writer. Her son Father Duane retained many letters written to him during her widowed years which he had bound and named, Dear Son. John died at the Plainville hospital on November 30, 1978. Olive died at her home surrounded by her children, on September 11, 1985. They are both buried in the St. Joseph Cemetery in Damar, less than a mile from where she was born. Olive is immortalized through publications by two of her daughters: Ma Famille, Herbert – Frigon – St.Peter – Morin – Senesac, 1660-1994, by Sister Veronica (Ila Mae) Roy, CSJ, MS. RD/LD; and An Ordinary Nun, The Life and Letters of Sister Veronica Mary Roy, CSJ, by Linda Roy M. Cross, Kearney, NE, Morris Publishing, 2002.