| Variations of Name | Tony Olivas, Tony Oliva, Billy Olivas, Bill Oliva |
| Biography | Rev Father William 'Bill' V Olivas OSA was born March 26 1921, in Ojai to William and Solena Olivas and was a lifelong Ventura County resident. He had been an Augustinian friar for 16 years and a priest for 10 years. He was a lifelong member of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Ojai. He was ordained a deacon for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1977.
During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, participating in the Invasion of Normandy, and obtaiing the rank of staff sergeant. During his nine months of training in England for the invasion, he became interested in bodybuilding and professional wrestling. After the war, he was part of the heyday of professional wrestling in the '40s and '50s, much of the time wrestling under aliases such as "The Elephant Boy" and "The Wild Man from Borneo." While wrestling in Arizona, he met his wife, Martha, a nurse and dietician, whom he married in 1961. They operated Matilija Hot Springs in Ojai from 1964 until Ventura County reclaimed it in 1987. His wife, Martha E Olivas, died the next year, 1988.
Within a few years afterwards, he asked to become a friar of the Ordr of St. Augustine. He went to the novitaiate and professed vows as an Augustinian brother in 1991, when he was 70 years old. Then he attended St. Johnson's Seminar for the study of theology and was ordained a priest on June 16, 1997. Father Olivas was an assistant to Bishop Thomas Curry for several years, and was a much-sought-after priest for visiting the sick or officiating at funerals. In 2003 he was named a Living Treasure by the city of Ojai. For the past two years, he was in declining health and a resident at Autumn Years of Ojai. |