Olabide was born in 1869 in Vitoria, Álava, Spain, to a couple who lived on the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca in the center of the city, where they ran a small business.

The noted Basque lexographer who had published a classic dictionary of the language in 1904, Resurrección María de Azkue, later commented that Olabide seemed to know his work better than he himself, the author, did.

[1] In 1914 Olabide published his first translation into that language, that of the noted Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, in Basque Loyola'tar Eneko Deunaren Gogo-iñarkunak.

The following year, Olabide published his translation into the Basque of the medieval spiritual classic, Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, with the title of Kisto'ren antz-bidea.

[1] The translation on which Olabide had been working at the town of his death was completed by a fellow Jesuit, Patxi Etxeberria, who was brought back from missionary service in Taiwan for this effort.