The Funeral Service will be held at 11:00am MT, Friday, April 1, 2011 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Mott with Pastor John Amundson, officiating. Cremation, then burial will take place at a later date.

Patricia Sue Holmes was born May 18, 1938, in Belle, West Virginia to Thomas Mayo Holmes and Mable Spurlock Holmes. She grew up going to school in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC while spending summers on her grandmother's farm in the mountains of West Virginia. Pat graduated from Bethesda Chevy Chase High School, and started college at George Washington University.


Pat met Ben Olien while he was stationed with the army in DC at Epiphany Episcopal USO, and married him August 30, 1959, in Hamlin, West Virginia. They moved to Mott in 1963. Once her children were grown, Pat finished her bachelors degree at Dickinson State College, graduating in 1990. She valued knowledge, read widely, and taught her children to learn as much as they could.

Pat lived a life of service. She always seemed to have at least one paying job in addition to volunteer work and caring for her family. While Pat lived in the DC area, those jobs included working for the Cuban Sugar Consul in the days before Castro, teaching ballroom dancing, and working at People's Drug Stores. She was also an active member of her sorority, Delta Zeta, and volunteered with the USO. After moving to Mott, she joined the Eastern Star, Mrs. Jaycees, Study Club, Bowling League, and Bridge Club, golfed for many years, and was First Lady of the North Dakota Jaycees and the North Dakota League of Cities. All of that meant she did a lot of entertaining and traveling, eventually visiting all 50 states as well as several foreign countries.


Over the years in Mott, she worked in a variety of ways to earn money. At one point, she was selling Tupperware, doing office work for Olien Auto Implement, and interviewing for the Census Bureau, sometimes all in the same week. The jobs she worked at longest were at Olien Auto, and for the Census Bureau. She started with the 1970 decennial census, and continued with many ongoing surveys: American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, Health Interview Survey, National Wildlife Fishing and Hunting Survey, and numerous other one-time surveys throughout her 32 year career. Her reliability and diligence led to her promotion to Supervisory Field Representative, where she helped recruit and train new interviewers. She enjoyed this work immensely, and kept at it until January of 2011.


Part of her love for her work with the Census was her great enjoyment of other people. Over the last several years, as hunters have visited Mott, she hosted many. She loved getting to know them, hearing their stories, and keeping in touch. Pat made friends everywhere she went, and enjoyed long conversations on a variety of topics. She was always ready to learn something new, always assumed that whoever she spoke with had something to say worth hearing. That made her a great listener.


Pat was also known to be a great shopper. Every where she went, she enjoyed finding treasures in thrift shops and bargaining with street vendors. Shopping with Pat was always fun. She spotted quality merchandise, amid junk, and recognized when a price was a great deal. Part of the fun of shopping with her was seeing her pick out items for other people, she delighted in being able to give gifts that would please the recipient.


Patricia Olien passed away March 25, 2011 at West River Regional Medical Center, Hettinger.


Survivors include her husband, Ben; one daughter, Cindy (Pasco) Avery, Ft. Pierce, Fla.; two sons, Thomas (Robin), Fargo, and David (Liz), Wichita, Kan.; and six grandchildren: Ian Dougan and Neil Fedje; Odessa, Dyson and Nola Olien; and Josiah Avery. She was preceded in death by her parents.

Visitation will be Thursday, from 1:00 to 7:00pm at the Evanson-Jensen Funeral Home in Mott and on Friday one hour prior to services at Trinity Lutheran Church.