Continuing the work
At the request of Archbishop Corrigan, Cabrini founded a larger orphanage in West Park, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River. It was an ideal, healthful site for the orphans and for the North American novitiate which opened in 1891. The land was formerly owned by the Jesuits, who sold it at a very low price, because it lacked sufficient water. However, to the surprise of the Jesuits, the ever resourceful Cabrini soon discovered an underground spring on the property to that provided ample water even to this day.

In 1892, at Mother Cabrini’s direction, her Missionary Sisters traveled to New Orleans and quickly established a school and an orphanage in “Little Palermo” an Italian enclave of the French Quarter.

Back in New York, the Italian immigrants needed hospitals. Care of the sick, until this time, was not one of the ministries of the Institute nor was it an inclination of Mother Cabrini to do this type of work.

Archbishop Corrigan begged Mother Cabrini to take on hospital work. However, it wasn’t until Cabrini had a dream where she saw the Blessed Virgin Mary tending to a hospital patient, that she considered working in the healthcare field. In the dream, Cabrini asked the Virgin Mary what she was doing; the Blessed Virgin Mary responded, “I am doing the work you refuse to do.” Mother Cabrini moved quickly to establish a hospital for the Italian sick poor in New York City.. New to this work, the sisters turned out to be excellent healthcare providers and administrators. Mother Cabrini later went on to establish other hospitals in Chicago and Seattle.

She returned to Europe, and in 1898, she established a students’ residence in Paris and spent time exploring London with the prospect of founding a mission there. In 1899, she initiated a school in Madrid.

Expanding Horizons in the United States
At the turn of the 20th century, Mother Cabrini traveled to Chicago where there was a large Italian colony and established a parish school. From Chicago, she traveled to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the Italian immigrants asked for schools. From Scranton, she proceeded to Newark, New Jersey, where she accepted the task of establishing and running a parish school there.

She looked for solutions which would afford her the means to subsidize free schools. In Dobbs Ferry, New York, on the Hudson River, she founded Sacred Heart Villa a school for daughters of now well-to-do Italian families who paid tuition, monies which in turn were utilized to fund the free schools.

Cabrini headed to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado where a needy colony of Italian immigrants worked mostly in the mines under very harsh conditions. Her Sisters staffed a parish school and later, an orphanage.

In 1903, Mother Cabrini traveled seven days by train from Chicago to Seattle where she founded a school and an orphanage for Italian immigrants. She dreamed of establishing missions in Alaska and had she lived longer, this may have come to pass. Her dream of going to China persisted throughout her life. Her works on the western coast of the United States brought her closer to the Far East.

She extended her educational and childcare missions to California where there were settlements of Italian as well as Mexican immigrants. By September 1905, a school and an orphanage had been opened. Later, a preventorium for tubercular children, would be started in the Santa Monica Mountains north of the city.

Next Page: Her Legacy