Olive Cecilia Belisle

Quietly on the evening of December 28 at St. Patrick’s Home in Ottawa, just days after her 98th birthday.

Born in Cornwall, Ontario to the late Leo Robidoux and the late Stella Dow, Olive was raised in Mille Roches, one of the Lost Villages flooded by the 1950s damming of the St. Lawrence Seaway to generate hydroelectric power.

Olive was predeceased by her first husband Patrick Morpaw (1970), father to their five children, and by her second husband, Frederick Belisle (1978), who brought his seven children to the family, as well as by her youngest son Richard Morpaw in 1981.

After leaving school at a young age to work on the farm, Olive was employed at the Courtaulds Mills in Cornwall until her marriage in 1950. Widowhood led her back to the workplace and forced her to develop both resilience and independence. While she was employed for many years at Central Park Lodge in Ottawa, her social nature meant making time for dancing, bowling, darts and card games, and vacation trips across Canada and the US, especially the visits to her siblings and their spouses. A long time member of the Westboro Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, she volunteered for the annual Poppy Campaign, standing at her post at the Carlingwood Shopping Mall before Remembrance Day.

Olive lived independently until early 2024 when she moved to the Transition Unit at Bruyère Health and this past October to St. Patrick’s Home.

Olive is mourned by her children May Morpaw (the late Ernest Oliver), Iris Allard, Phyllis Hawryzki (the late Allan) and Larry Morpaw (Susanne Striegler). She will be missed by her grandsons Joe Allard (Heather Hare), Zachary Morpaw and Jesse Morpaw, and her granddaughters Allison Dewulf (Élie) and Debra Hawryzki as well as her great grandchildren Lavender and Parker Allard and Hugo Dewulf, and her godson Phillip Robidoux.

Predeceased by six of her eight siblings, Olive will also be sadly missed by her surviving brothers Lloyd (Eileen) of Claremont, CA and Norman (Ethel) of Kelowna, BC, her sister-in-law Monica Robidoux (late Lionel) of Ottawa, and her brother-in-law Gerry Rivet of Cornwall, in addition to her nieces and nephews.

The family is grateful for the constant care and attention provided by the healthcare and recreation staff at both Bruyère Health and the St. Patrick’s Home.

Family and friends may visit at the Tubman Funeral Home at 403 Richmond Road in Westboro on Wednesday, January 14 between 2 and 4 pm. A funeral mass will follow at 11 am on Thursday, January 15 at St. George’s Roman Catholic Church on Piccadilly Avenue, with interment in the spring at Notre Dame Cemetery on Montreal Road.

Those wishing may donate to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute at the Ottawa Hospital, the Bruyère Health Foundation, the St. Patrick’s Home Foundation or an organization of their choice.