Upon their arrival at Mission San Jose in 1891, the Dominican Sisters were welcomed by silvery olive trees planted by the Franciscan Friars. By 1894, the sisters had begun processing these olives to produce their olive oil.
Although olive harvesting ceased in 1965, it was reinstated in January 2000 when Sister Jane Rudolph, then Motherhouse administrator, was looking for an olive oil producer in the Bay Area and found the Sciabica Family Olive Oil Company in the Yellow Pages. Sister Jane spoke with Daniel Sciabica, who assured her, “Sister, get your olives to our place and we will produce the olive oil for you!”
On Sister Jane’s first visit with Sister Donna Maria Moses to deliver the olives, Sciabica arranged for testing to assess the quality of the olive oil and shared that the Dominican Sisters have the last of the Franciscan planting of olive trees at the California Missions. (Mission San Jose was founded in 1797.)
Those olives were originally brought from Spain, planted at the Missions and subsequently developed their own variety named by the Franciscans as “Mission Olives.” During the production of the olive oil from these original Mission Variety Olives, the free fatty acidity of the Dominican Sisters’ olive oil was found to be unusually low—at 0.17%. Sciabica had never seen results like that before!
For 25 years, the Sciabicas have crushed and bottled the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose Olive Oil. As the 25th anniversary of their partnership approached, the Sisters wanted to celebrate the Sciabicas in a unique way. On Sunday, June 8, a special Mass was held during which the Sciabica family was introduced.
Mass was followed by a lunch at which Dan Sciabica and his brother Nick spoke of their happiness in working with the Sisters. Sister Rose Marie Hennessy, another former administrator, presented Dan with a plaque celebrating the 25-year relationship, and Sister Celeste Marie Botello, the current Prioress General, presented Nick with a crystal paperweight celebrating the same message.
As many of the Sisters and guests remarked, it was a family celebration which will continue as long as there are Sisters to harvest the olives and Sciabicas to bottle their hopes and dreams.
