Born on May 21,1899, Francis Xavier Roth was the second of the five children of Josef and Anna Riss Roth of Passau-Hacklberg, Bavaria, Germany. After his mother died of pneumonia in 1907, his father remarried, and another brother and sister were added to his family.

From 1905 to 1914, Francis Roth received his primary education in the public schools of Saldenburg and Schloss Egg. His secondary education was completed at the "Gymnasium" (high school) and the Military Academy in Passau, Bavaria. The next two years were spent at St. Maximilian Seminary in Passau. In 1917, while a member of the National Guard of Griesbach during World War I, he suffered an almost fatal injury which affected his health in later years.

From 1919 to 1923, he attended the Ludwig Universitat in Munich. During that same period, he was employed by the Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Faulhaber, to serve as chauffeur to Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, Papal Nuncio to Bavaria. In the late 1930's, when Cardinal Pacelli, as Papal Secretary of State, visited the Catholic University of America in Washington, he recognized a young Dominican and stopped his car to greet Brother Francis Roth, a moment which was widely publicized by the press. A short time later, a newly elected pope took the name of Pius XII.

In 1923, Francis Roth departed for the United States and Baltimore where his sister lived. He found work in a restaurant. He regretted that he was getting too old to become a priest but was encouraged by his pastor to apply to the Dominicans. After his ordination he never took a vacation and explained that he had gotten a late start in his ministry and "there was so much work to be done."

In 1926, he began studies at Providence College, and in 1929 applied for admission to the Order. He received the Dominican habit and his religious name of Hyacinth on August 15, 1931, at St. Rose Priory in Springfield, Kentucky. After simple profession on August 16, 1932, he went to the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest, Illinois, for philosophical studies; theological studies were taken at St. Joseph Priory, Somerset, Ohio, and the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., from 1935 to 1939. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 16, 1938.

Having completed his studies, Father Roth was assigned to St. Margaret Parish in Boyce, Louisiana. For the next twenty-three years he served the missions of that district as pastor or associate. During these years he was Diocesan Director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and also was active in preparing and broadcasting many religious programs on local radio stations.

From 1962 to 1964, Father Roth was assigned to Amarillo, Texas. Then he was reassigned to Louisiana where he served in the parishes at Boyce and Montgomery until 1972. A classmate who knew him well said, "He was deeply loved by the rural poor for his kindness, his ready smile, his spirit of sacrifice."

Ill health forced Father Roth to retire. After several surgeries, followed by a series of strokes in1972, he required constant nursing care and became a resident in the Natchitoches Parish Hospital. In 1975, he was moved to Heritage Manor Nursing Home in Dubuque, Iowa, and remained there until, having contracted pneumonia, he died on December 30, 1985. Following a funeral Mass at the Priory of St. Dominic and St. Thomas in River Forest, he was buried in the Dominican plot at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois, on January 2, 1986.