Frances Xavier Cabrini was an Italian-American Catholic nun. She was born on July 15, 1850 in the small village of Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Italy. She aspired to join a religious order; however, her health kept her from entering the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, the order who had been her teachers and mentors. In 1880, Frances founded her own order with seven other young women—the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She and her Sisters wanted to be missionaries in China. She visited Rome to obtain an audience with Pope Leo XIII, who told Frances to go “not to the East, but the West” to New York. She was to help the thousands of Italian immigrants already in the United States. In 1889, New York seemed to be filled with chaos and poverty, and Mother Frances Cabrini and her Sister companions stepped into this new world. Cabrini organized catechism and education classes for the Italian immigrants and provided for the needs of the many orphans. She establish...