She founded 67 schools, hospitals, and orphanages.  Despite her fear of water and her frail constitution, Mother Cabrini’s “sea legs” carry her 23 times over the Atlantic allowing her to continue her charitable missions dedicated to immigrants throughout North America and the world. In her life of 67 years she establishes 67 hospitals, schools, and other charitable institutions.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), popularly known as Mother Cabrini, is the patron saint of immigrants. 

Given Mother Cabrini’s history of helping immigrants, the fact that the area where her statue stands includes views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island is significant.  For many years, the Statue of Liberty greeted immigrants arriving in the U.S. by ship. Ellis Island is the place where many immigrants were processed by immigration officials before they were allowed to enter the country. And the Diocese of Brooklyn is known as the diocese of immigrants.

She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus  

She died in 1917 and was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946. 

Serves hundreds of orphans and immigrant families, five points Manhattan  In the Five Points neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, Mother Cabrini witnesses the devastating living conditions of the immigrants. She makes it her mission to elevate the human condition and defend the rights of immigrants and needy. Mother Cabrini soon meets with Countess Mary Reid Cesnola to establish an orphanage for young girls. Her husband Count Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, becomes her strategic advisor and helps her navigate this new modern society. The Cesnola’s will remain supporters and friends of Mother Cabrini.

Manhattan Brooklyn - Support from the immigrants 

Countess Cesnola Sponsors Orphanage followed by other congregations  On April 21, 1889, Mother Cabrini opens an orphanage with the help of Countess Cesnola at 43 East 59th St. and names it House of the Holy Angels. Almost as soon as it is open, she focuses on moving the orphanage to a place that is located closer to immigrant neighborhoods and also capable of accommodating a greater number of children to assist in the physical and spiritual care of all children in need – orphans as well as children abandoned by immigrant families – who arrived in America to find far less than the riches that they imagined.

59th Street NYC - House of Holy angels, first NYC Orphanage; 1890 West Park NY - Manresa Orphanage on Hudson River 

Education of Orpahns; 1892 Columbus hospital NYC - Thousands of patients receive free medical assistance monthly  Mother Cabrini returns to Italy for a short time and within a few months of her return to New York, she purchases a beautiful property in West Park, affectionately called “Manresa.” Leveraging her upbringing as a daughter of farmers, her creative abilities, and her love for the land she finds a spring of water on the arid property where a well can be drilled. The orphanage is moved from Manhattan to this stable and more favorable location and it also becomes a place for the training of her “daughters.” With her guidance, the immigrant children under her care are taught English and American customs without losing track of the values and traditions of their homeland. There are many impoverished Italian immigrants in desperate need of medical attention and who are unfamiliar with the language and American customs. Due to Mother Cabrini’s administrative and organizational skills, on July 25, 1891 she is implored by Archbishop Corrigan to assume responsibility of a hospital for the Italian immigrants. Mother Cabrini agrees under one condition: that it remains under her direction. Mother Cabrini ends the collaboration with the hospital’s owners and establishes a new hospital, with the generous help of the Countess Cesnola and her daughters and the encouragement of Archbishop Corrigan. It is the first hospital of the Missionary Sisters, and is named Columbus Hospital – eventually renamed Cabrini Medical Center – open to all, including those who cannot pay. Doctors donate their services free of charge.

Giancarlo Jill Biagi @ 2020 New York 

Sant Angelo Lodiciano Italy July 13 1850  On July 15, 1850 in the small town of Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Northern Italy, Frances Cabrini is born as a flock of doves hovers over her family’s farmhouse. As Maria-Francesca is born, a dove welcomes her into the world. The Cabrini family gathers in the evenings listening to the stories their father, Agostino Cabrini, who tells tales of missionaries such as Francis Xavier and their heroic deeds. Frances, endearingly nicknamed Cecchina because of her minute stature, develops a lively and creative mind and becomes passionate about missionary work. Frances wishes to follow in the footsteps of the great Jesuit Missionary Saint Francis Xavier whose deeds of plurality, care for numerous ethnic groups, tolerance for diversity and contemporary insight into spiritual globalization influences Cabrini’s direction. Cecchina often visits her uncle Don Luigi Oldini, parish priest of Livraga who lives near the Venera River. During one of her visits, Cecchina builds a boat with wax paper from her lunch and fills it with violets, her “missionaries”. Then sends them off to China on the Venera River to rescue infant girls. She loses her balance and falls into the river and a hand rescues her, which she always believes to have been her guardian angel. Cecchina catches bronchitis after falling into the water and her sister Rosa takes good care of her, putting her back on her path to becoming the cheered advocate of immigrants and the needy around the world.

Mother Cabrini spent a great deal of time working in Brooklyn after arriving in the U.S. from her native Italy in 1889. 

Mother Cabrini 1850-1917; Dedicated by Andrew Cuomo, Governor; October 12. 2020