Olivia Resendiz Rodriguez was born in San José de Vargas, Mexico, on a ranch alongside her siblings. It was a childhood that taught her that a family needs love and company.

She married Antonio ‘Panchito’ Rodriguez on October 1, 1960. They were together for sixty-six years and raised eight children together.

In 1969, they left their home and came to Selma, California, carrying the hope that has carried so many people across many borders, that a child can be given more than the parent was. She and Antonio cultivated their own American dream. They had little, but they had each other and their children, and they made the most of every day.

While Antonio and the children went out to the fields, Olivia kept the house. She was the reason there was food on the table when they came in tired, the reason the floors were clean and the rooms were warm. Her frijoles, tortillas de harina, and menudo were never in doubt, and neither were songs that she sang yearly at the nacimiento that appeared every Christmas. She kept the home spotless for her children and kept the door open for everyone else. When her brothers and sisters needed a place to land, she offered her home and her care.

Conversation was the real life force of the house. She loved to chat. She loved to connect, whether with her neighbors Irma Martinez and Ines Morales or with whoever happened to be sitting across from her, waiting for her on the other side of a phone call. She liked to sing, especially the old Catholic hymns and “Cruz de Olvido.” She was faithful, gentle, and loving, and she had a strong personality that no one ever mistook for anything else. She loved flowers, yellow especially.

Her devout faith lived in the St. Joseph’s Church community, where she started the legacy of Celebration of Saint Joseph’s, which is held every year and will go on being held.

What she wanted most was simple, for her people to come. She wanted her children to visit often, and she wanted them to bring her grandchildren. She taught all of us how to be present with the people we love. She urged her grandchildren to speak Spanish and attend church regularly. In quiet moments, she would sit with them and play with their hair and wrap dollar bills into napkins, sneakily giving it to them on holidays. And if her children were overly affectionate with her, it got her laughing every time. She wanted to feel connected, and she wanted to feel loved. She was.

Olivia kept one hopeful habit. She scratched her lottery tickets with a coin and in complete seriousness, certain that the big one was there, and that it would secure a future for the people she loved. It was never really about the money. Whatever the tickets paid, she had already given the real prize away, her love and care.

Olivia is survived by her husband of sixty-six years, Antonio Rodriguez; her seven children (Bertha, Angie, Tere, Ramon, Cecilia, Frank, Javier), her siblings, her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and a wide circle of family, neighbors, and friends who were fed, sheltered, and loved at her table. She is preceded by her son, Martin Rodriguez and her grandchild, Andrew Rodriguez, her parents, Jose and Josefina Resendiz.

The family requests that donations be made out to St.Joseph’s Catholic Church.

A rosary and viewing will be held at 6 p.m. at Farewell-Page Funeral Chapel. Mass will be at 9 a.m. at St.Joseph’s Church. Burial will be held at 10 a.m. at Selma Cemetery District.