Joliet Catholic Academy this week announced “the largest single gift ever received” by the school from the late Phyllis A. Olsta, a 1951 graduate of the former St. Francis Academy who went to faraway places during a career in the travel industry but never lost touch with her Joliet roots.

Olsta made a $6.08 million contribution from her estate to the JCA Legacy Capital Campaign, giving a big boost to the school’s plan to expand its campus with new sports facilities including a football stadium.

“Phyllis Olsta’s generosity will permanently strengthen our ability to serve families, grow our campus, and ensure that generations of students benefit from the Carmelite and Franciscan traditions she cherished,” JCA President and Principal Jeff Budz said in a Facebook posting in which the school announced the donation on Tuesday.

JCA has raised $12.5 million so for in a private phase of the fundraising campaign. The school plans to go public with the campaign in January.

Olsta died on Oct. 6 at the age of 92 after a life that included travels through the South Pacific and Alaska during her professional career and a short venture with a traveling troupe of skaters named the “Ice Varieties” in 1958.

She graduated from what was then St. Francis Academy before it later merged with Joliet Catholic High School to become Joliet Catholic Academy.

Already a big contributor to the school, she established the Phyllis A. Olsta Scholarship at JCA in 2012.

In 2023, Olsta was inducted into JCA’s Hall of Champions for Business & Industry.

“My contributions to JCA are like a gift that keeps giving back,” she said at the time according to the school’s Facebook announcement. “It’s a wonderful present to give to Joliet Catholic Academy, a school that has done so much for all of us.”

Olsta’s obituary, published in The Herald-News and elsewhere, along with the JCA announcement describe a woman who wanted to see the world but always had an attachment to her hometown.

She was a single woman. Her obituary lists no survivors. She was the only child of her parents, Joe and Ann Olsta.

Her last years were spent in Portland, Oregon, according to Olsta’s obituary. Her funeral was handled by Fred C. Dames Funeral Home, which has been in Joliet since 1954, with the Mass said at Holy Cross Catholic Church, located in one of Joliet’s older neighborhoods.

While in Alaska, Olsta volunteered with the Monroe Foundation, which supported the development of Catholic education in that state.

The JCA announcement noted that Olsta also supported the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate, the Joliet-based order that started St. Francis Academy and provided the nuns who during Olsta’s yourth ran many of the parochial schools in Joliet and surrounding towns.

She traveled to Bora Bora and other exotic South Pacific locales as a cruise ship hostess. Her obituary notes that Olsta enjoyed talking on the phone with friends, including those from Joliet.

A Herald-News article from 2001 mentions Olsta among the members of the Chit, Chat and Chew Club, a group of Joliet-area women connected by their schoolgirl days, some of whom lived elsewhere at the time but all of whom made it a point to stay in touch once a month for the past 50 years.

Olsta’s obituary includes a quote attributed to her: “I wanted to see what was beyond Joliet.”

“But I come home every Christmas,” she told The Herald-News in 2001.