Mission to America

Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on July 15, 1850 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Lombardy. She was premature and the youngest of 13 children. Only three of her siblings survived into adulthood.

She was educated at a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart. She later applied to join the religious congregation but was rejected due to ill health. Eventually she became the headmistress of the House of Providence orphanage in Codogno, where she also drew a small community of women to live a religious way of life. She took vows in 1877.