Historic Ramblings: Mission Olives ("Gifts of the Earth")

There are two parallel rows of olive trees wide enough for two wagons to pass along Mission Blvd in front of Ohlone College in Fremont’s Mission San Jose District. Surprisingly, the hardy trees have survived several centuries during the regions flourishing periods of agricultural, residential and commercial growth. Planted on the sacred ground by the Ohlone people under the direction of Franciscan friars in the late 1700’s, these remaining trees marked the original shaded approach to the fourteenth Spanish Mission for travelers from the mission at Santa Clara. The attractive and productive trees were grown at each of the Spanish Missions situated about a day’s walk from one another along California’s El Camino Real by Franciscan Missionaries from the Mission of San Diego de Alcala.

 Just over three hundred unattended original trees were still surviving when the Dominican Sisters arrived at Mission San Jose in 1891 when they began harvesting the rich oil for sale to Catholic parishes throughout the Bay Area. Cultivation that was paused in 1965 for nation’s 35 years and has been resumed by the Sisters who harvest the ripe fruit each October and November from two hundred flourishing historic Mission Olives trees, the largest number of any of California’s twenty-one Missions.

 “Many hands go into the tending, harvesting, and bottling the golden oil, an activity that engenders great appreciation for the gifts of the Earth.”  

The prized olives are cold pressed, bottled and labeled in Modesto in California’s Central Valley by the Sciabica family, the nation’s oldest producer of cold press products. Extra Virgin Mission Olive Oil from the historic trees at Mission San Jose that once shaded missionaries, the Ohlone people, gold seekers and wayfarers is sold each November at the Dominican Sisters Annual Holiday Boutique.