Venerable Fidela Oller Angelats

Fidela Oller Angelats (born Maria Dolors Oller Angelats; 17 September 1869 – 30 August 1936) was a Spanish religious sister of the Hermanas de Sant Josep o Vetlladores (Sisters of Saint Joseph of Girona). She suffered martyrdom in the Spanish Civil War when she was gunned together along a road at Xeresa. On 5 September 2015, she was beatied in the Girona Cathedral. Maria Dolors Oller Angelats was born on 17 September 1869 in Bañolas as the oldest of four children born to the potter Lorenzo Oller Verdaguer (1842–88) and Margarita Angelats Frigola. Her baptism was celebrated just moments after in the parish church of Santa María del Turers where she was baptized with the names Dolors Margarita Teresa. The Bishop of Girona Constantino Bonet conferred Confirmation upon her two months later that November. Her three brothers (in order) were Lorenzo (b. 1873), Teresa (male name; b. 1875) and Salvador (b. 1880). Her brother Salvador later became a Marist as Brother Doroteo. Her paternal grandfather (also a potter) was Lorenzo Oller Bartra. From age seventeen she aspired to enter the religious life more than she had in her childhood and decided that she would become a professed religious herself. This stemmed from when she first encountered the Religious Sisters of Saint Joseph of Girona who came to her town on 14 July 1880 in order to help in the local hospital; she was exposed to them during this time and was attracted to their work. Oller made her first attempt to join the order not long following this resolution but was forced to leave for home after the sudden death of her father in 1888 (he died while tending to an ill relative). This return home prompted her to take care of her widowed mother and her brothers (Lorenzo aged fifteen, Teresa thirteen, and Salvador eight) in addition to her paternal grandfather who had moved in with them.