Born: St-Georges-Haute-Ville (Loire), France, February 27, 1824.
Priestly ordination: St-Paul of Wallamet, Oregon, September 19. 1847.
Took the habit: St-Joseph, Olympia, December 7, 1848.
Vows: St-Joseph, Olympia, December 8, 1849 (No.269).
Died: New Westminster, January 29, 1907.
François Jayol was born on February 27 at Saint-Georges-Haute-Ville, diocese of Lyon. His parents were Jean Jayol, farmer, and Marie Anne Brun. He studied in ecclesiastical establishments in Verrières and Alix. Then he entered the major seminary in Lyon where he was ordained sub-deacon in 1846 and he left for the missions in Oregon 1847. He completed his theological studies in Saint Paul, Wallamet and there he was ordained priest on September 19, 1847 by Bishop François Norbert Blanchet, Archbishop of Oregon City.
Sent to Saint Joseph Mission, in Olympia, with Fr. Pascal Ricard, o.m.i., he began his novitiate on December 7, 1848 and pronounced his perpetual vows on December 8, 1849.
He remained in Olympia, Washington (1849-1860) until that mission was abandoned. He then went to Esquimalt in Vancouver Island (1860-1861) where he worked among the Sanitch Amerindians. We next find him back on the continent, in New Westminster (1861-1962), in Tulalip, Washington (1862-1864) in Immaculate Conception, Okanagan (1864-1866), in Mission City (1866-1867), again in New Westminster in 1867. He then founded a mission in Williams Lake (1867) and at Saint-Michel (Fort Rupert) on the island of Vancouver (1868-1872). From there he returned to New Westminster (1872-1907).
The author of his necrology notice concludes with this paragraph: “Father Jayol was for many years a councillor of the vicariate. The authorities appreciated his wisdom and wished to learn lessons from his experience. Besides, all his religious confreres could only be edified by his religious virtues. He was a model of humility, of punctuality, of fraternal charity. He was outstanding for his solid and open piety and his spirit of prayer. To everybody he gave the example of dedication to the Congregation. Finally, on January 21, 1907, he became ill with influenza and after a week of suffering which he bore with a true religious spirit, he died quietly at the age of 83 years, on January 29, 1907.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Gaston Carrière, o.m.i.
