Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

Dominican Sisters, the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer
New York, New York

Born in 1851, Rose Hawthorne was "Rosebud" to her father, the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rose married George Lathrop, a young, aspiring writer when she was 20. After the death of their young son in 1881, the couple moved to New York City. They converted to Catholicism in 1891, and Rose became involved in helping the needy. When the marriage failed a few years later, she took a three-month course at the New York Cancer Hospital.

Rose's interest in cancer was prompted by her friendship with the poet Emma Lazarus, author of the inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty. During a conversation Rose learned that Emma was suffering from a dreaded disease: cancer. In the late 1800s, cancer carried a fierce stigma and was believed to be contagious. Although Lazarus was well cared for until she died, others who contracted the disease were not so lucky. People with cancer who had no economic resources were sent to the grim Blackwell's Island, New York City's last resort for the penniless.

At 44, the socially well-connected Rose Hawthorne Lathrop took a flat in the poorest section of New York City, the Lower East Side. To work among the poor, she reasoned, she would have to live among the poor. Rose had her first patient before her bags were unpacked: a seven-year-old boy. Many more quickly followed. Rose turned down no one. Going from tenement to tenement, she cared for the poor, the downtrodden, and the dying in their own homes.

She began taking into her home poor people with cancer who had no place to go. Soon she had to move to larger quarters.

To support her efforts, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne begged. In her diary, she described how painful begging was for her:

"Fifth Avenue [where the wealthy lived] seems as far and as frozen as the road to Alaska. It seems so when I stand in my little rooms very nearly at the end of my money and ask myself if I have the courage to enter the homes of the well-to-do and the rich and beg for the destitute."

To enlist the aid of the public, Rose began writing newspaper articles about her work. One day a woman who had read her articles stopped outside Rose's home. Alice Huber, an art student from a well-to-do family, wanted to join Rose Hawthorne in her efforts to help the sick. The two became lifetime companions. In May 1899, they opened St. Rose's Free Home for Incurable Cancer. The following year, the two women founded a religious congregation: the Dominican Sisters, the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer, now known as the Hawthorne Dominican Sisters. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop became Sr. Alphonsa, and Alice Huber became Sr. Mary Rose.

Sr. Alphonsa had three rules: the sisters were never to show disgust at disfigurement brought about by cancer, no patient could be a guinea pig for medical research, and no money would be accepted from patients or their relatives.

In 1900, Sr. Alphonsa purchased a house 30 miles north of New York City as the site for a second home for her patients. Today the town where it is situated is named Hawthorne.

She remained at Rosary Hill, the new site, while Sr. Mary Rose returned to St. Rose's Home in New York City. The two corresponded regularly, and Sr. Mary Rose often sent Sr. Alphonsa patients whom she felt the country air would do good.

Today both homes continue Rose Hawthorne's mission. They are among seven homes in the United States operated by the congregation for the sole purpose of caring for people with terminal cancer who cannot pay for their care. Every year, the Hawthorne Dominican Sisters care for more than 1,000 people whose stays average six to eight weeks.

To this day the sisters do not charge their patients. Nor do they rely on government support; they accept neither Medicare nor Medicaid. What they rely on is "what the mailman brings us every day," according to Sr. M. Joseph, administrator of St. Rose's Home.

"Rose Hawthorne depended on God, and she promised never to charge her patients. We've upheld our part of that promise, and He's upheld His."

Excerpt from a letter from Mark Twain to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop:

"And certainly if there is an unassailably good cause in the world, it is this one undertaken by the Dominican Sisters, of housing, nourishing, and nursing the most pathetically unfortunate of all the afflicted among us--men and women sentenced to a painful and lingering death by incurable disease. I have seen [this lofty work of yours] rise from seedling to tree with no endowment but the voluntary aid which your patient labor and faith have drawn from the purses of grateful and compassionate men; and I am glad. . . to know that this prosperity will continue and be permanent . . . . It cannot fail until pity fails in the hearts of men, and that will never be."