known as Mother Cabrini
born July 15, 1850, Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, Austria
died Dec. 22, 1917, Chicago, Ill., U.S.; canonized July 7, 1946; feast day December 22
Italian-born U.S. missionary, the first U.S. citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic church.
She was determined from childhood to become a missionary, and she took her vows in 1877. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1880, and in 1889 Pope Leo XIII sent her to the U.S. to work among Italian immigrants. She lived in New York City and Chicago but traveled in the Americas and Europe to found 67 houses of her order.