Oliver, John Raymond

John Raymond Oliver was born in Canso, Nova Scotia on April 3, 1908, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1927. While studying at the Jesuit Seminary in Toronto, he learned Ojibwe and French. In 1934, he went to Spanish, Ontario to teach at the residential school followed by a year of teaching at Regiopolis College in Kingston, Ontario. He completed his studies at Immaculée-Conception in Montreal and was ordained a priest in August of 1940.

In 1942, Father Oliver returned to Northern Ontario to work with the Ojibwe people in small parishes along the north shore of the Georgian Bay. He was named minister and prefect of discipline at the residential school at Spanish, and in 1945 was appointed Superior and principal there. He is credited with implementing high school classes at the residential school, which officially opened in 1948 with the help of the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the last four of seven years at Spanish, he was official advisor to the Provincial Superior, making monthly trips to Toronto to fulfill the duty.

In 1952, Father Oliver was assigned to the Holy Cross Mission at Wikwemikong in Ontario where he served as pastor and Superior of a small community. When two fires at Wikwemikong nearly destroyed several of the parish’s buildings, Father Oliver oversaw their reconstruction. In 1959, however, Father Oliver was directed to leave the Northern Missions to become Superior of Bellarmine Hall in Toronto, where he remained for five years before returning to pastoral ministry as a parish priest of St. John Brebeuf Parish in Winnipeg in 1964. In 1972, he was assigned to Ignatius College in Guelph, giving assistance to nearby parishes and ministering at the Loyola House. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980.