St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Frances Cabrini's story runs from her youthful desire for mission life, through the failure of the first house she tried to steady, to the simple instruction that she should found a missionary institute herself. From Codogno she built the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, first for girls in Italy and then, by Pope Leo XIII's direction, for Italian immigrants in the Americas. The full account includes the rough arrival in New York, her refusal to go back when local plans collapsed, the founding of orphanages, schools, and hospitals, and the rapid spread of houses across North and South America and Europe.

She was small in body but immense in will, strict in government, fearless in action, and practical in charity. By her sudden death in Chicago in 1917, the little band had become an international missionary family.