‘Life was hard even before COVID-19’: Now, Idaho man steps up to help family combat disease

Until almost six weeks ago, Olivier “Ollie” De Jolie had been a regular on the Sun Valley/Ketchum food and beverage circuit.

Bartender, cook, guy-around-town willing to help anyone, Ollie arrived to the area 20 years ago when he accompanied a cousin on a social work mission for the Sioux tribe in Montana. On the way back to his family’s private tribal land in Arizona, they snaked down into Missoula and then into Idaho.

Ollie, then 35, fell in love with Hailey and never left.

That is, until March 17.

That’s when he got word that nine of his family members living on or near the Navajo reservation in Northern Arizona were infected with COVID-19.

In the next few weeks, he would lose five of them, including his aunt and her son, to the novel coronavirus. Three weeks earlier, he’d seen scores of family and friends at a funeral and celebration of life for his 86-year old father, Harry, who had lost his battle with heart disease, a fight that hadn’t kept the rancher down since a quadruple bypass operation in 1990.

His father was buried at Camp Navajo, just west of Flagstaff. He wore his uniform from his service in Korean War, and there was a beautiful military sendoff, including a 21-gun salute.

Now, with a Navajo Nation lockdown that mirrored the rest of the country, Ollie and his family would mourn the death of their relatives from the confines of his parent’s homestead near the small town of Page in Northern Arizona.

“On the reservation, it is like a fast-moving fire,” he said. Many members of his family attended a religious rally March 7 in the Navajo community of Chilchinbeto. The pastor had been infected but did not know it at the time. He has since died.

“We have lost so many family members to this virus,” Ollie said. “I am living this pandemic. These are sad hours.”

Family grapples with COVID-19

On the ranch, set back on a dirt road six miles off Highway 98 in Arizona, Ollie’s 86-year old mother Florence De Jolie is mourning and taking care of business.

She cries and works. This was no time to breathe easy.

Her children are scattered around the West and, for now, Ollie — she calls him Lodie – has taken over the family chores, which includes an hour-long roundtrip into Page every few days to haul 500 gallons of water for the cows and sheep that graze the property, and enough water for life inside the house.

The land has no water source, inside or out, and the area is now into a three-decade drought, Ollie said. There, the luxury of his Sun Valley showers are replaced by a “bird bath” fed by five gallon tanks.

During his trips to town, he wears the requisite gloves and mask. By late March, he started coughing, and night-and-day sweats followed. He couldn’t breathe. He was shaken into wakefulness with nightmares that everyone who tested positive was dying.

He continued to work the land, growing sicker by the day. His mother fed him. By March 30, he drove himself to a local hospital for testing. A day later, he got the news but he didn’t need a test result to know he was infected. Nine days later, his mother and his younger brother also tested positive.

Thankfully, he said, his mother has had no symptoms. But Ollie’s younger brother also had other health issues and was admitted to the hospital in Tuba City. After 10 days there, the family got word that he is on the mend. He was released last week so that the hospital could free up the bed for the next COVID-19 patient. Ollie is also feeling better.

Ollie and his sisters have not been able to reach another brother living in Flagstaff, and they fear that he too may have become infected.

He said that he takes solace from the strength of his parents, who made a good, loving life in spite of hardships they faced.

“Life was hard even before COVID-19, and now … ” Ollie said, his voice softening.

A family history of fortitude

Florence was a child when her mother was taken to the hospital with stomach pains. It was appendicitis, but she didn’t feel comfortable there, and she walked out of the hospital, sick and without her shoes, back to the camp where they lived. She died when she got home.

Florence would lose her father before she left the family home to marry Harry, at 21. They would eventually inherit the land of Harry’s father. In 1984, on route hauling water from Page, she was hit head-on by a drunk driver and lost her right eye.

“My parents were unstoppable,” said Ollie. The rugged land, the life, infused a strength that would now help this family through COVID-19.

“My mom is certainly the strongest person I know,” said Ollie, who will head home to Sun Valley when the town re-opens for business.

When he wasn’t working, he taught local children about life of the Navajo people. As for his mother, she will continue working the hard land and raising her animals. Her grown children and grandchildren will take turns helping with her business, and with life on the ranch.

As of April 21, the Navajo Epidemiology Center has counted 1,206 positive COVID-19 cases in the Navajo Nation and 48 deaths.

This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 7:36 AM.