Vintage Chicago Tribune: Mother Cabrini's Chicago milestones on her path to sainthood

Chicago Tribune

10-07-2025

The first American canonized by the Roman Catholic Church — just like the first American chosen as pope — once walked among the people of Chicago.
The youngest of 13 children of Italian farmers, she dreamed of serving as a missionary. Her poor health, however, meant she was rejected by several orders. That's why Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini — who was born 175 years ago this month — founded her own, Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Pope Leo XIII encouraged Cabrini to expand her mission to the United States.
When she first arrived in America, Cabrini didn't speak English and was told by the archbishop of New York that her trip was a mistake. Yet Cabrini persisted and even became a naturalized citizen in 1909.
Before her death in Chicago at age 67, Cabrini founded 67 schools, orphanages, hospitals, convents and places of worship in North and South America. Her order has a presence today on six continents and Cabrini is revered by the faithful as patron saint of immigrants.
Here's a look back at Cabrini's Chicago milestones on her path to sainthood.
More than 500 students arrived for the first day of classes at Assumption School (319 W. Erie St.), which was founded by Cabrini to educate the children of the Near North Side's Italian immigrant community. There was no cost to attend the school, which was operated by Cabrini's order as part of Assumption Church, the city's first Italian-American parish.
The school closed in 1945, but the building was used by Gamma Photo Labs and then the International Cinema Museum. It was converted to condominiums after receiving landmark status on July 9, 2003.
Columbus Hospital, at Deming Place and Lakeview Avenue in Lincoln Park, was dedicated and opened. It was the 46th institution founded by Cabrini.
The building was sold in 2001, then demolished in late 2006, to make way for a triple-tower high-rise condominium project — the first of its kind in the area since the 1970s.
Lakeview Avenue has an honorary marker designating it as Mother Cabrini Drive and also Marv Levy Way, for the Chicago-born former coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Cabrini purchased for $28,200 property at the northeast corner of Lytle Street and Gilpin Place on the Near West Side to build Columbus Extension Hospital, which later was renamed St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Hospital (811 S. Lytle St.).
The hospital closed and was converted in 1997 into residences known as Columbus on the Park.
Cabrini died while sitting in a wicker rocking chair inside her room at Columbus Hospital. Her body lay in state until Dec. 26, when it was transported to New York for burial by the Pullman Co.
Nuns from Cabrini's order closed up the spartan room, and dismantled it piece by piece when Columbus Hospital was rebuilt in the 1940s. A re-creation of Cabrini's room reopened to the public in 1988.
Cabrini was beatified as part of a Mass presided over by Pope Pius XI and celebrated by Chicago's first cardinal, George Mundelein, who also officiated at Cabrini's funeral. The radio broadcast of the ceremony marked the first one delivered by an American prelate from St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. The occasion marked special veneration for Cabrini on her path to sainthood.
Vatican firefighters were called in after wooden chandeliers holding candles near a bronze altar canopy caught fire during the event. No one was injured.
Mayor Edward J. Kelly dedicated the Frances Cabrini Rowhouses, the city's first wartime housing project, at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Cambridge Avenue.
Cabrini-Green timeline: From 'war workers' to 'Good Times,' Jane Byrne and demolitionConstruction of the 56 two- and three-story buildings — designed to house up to 600 families — was begun three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and completed in less than 10 months at a cost of more than $3.7 million. Only families of 'war workers' who earned less than $2,100 a year (roughly $33,000 in today's dollars) were eligible for tenancy.
The rowhouses are the only remaining property of the original Cabrini-Green development, according to the Chicago Housing Authority.
Pope Pius XII canonized Cabrini, which recognized her as a saint.
'Nations and peoples will learn from her — who ardently loved her fatherland and spread the treasures of her charity and her labors even to other lands — that they are called to constitute a single family that must not be divided in ambiguous and stormy rivalry, nor dissolve itself in eternal hostilities,' he said.
More than 100,000 people gathered at Soldier Field to celebrate Cabrini as part of Holy Hour.
Five years after its cornerstone was set, the National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini was dedicated.
After a decade shrouded in scaffolding due to the building of condominiums in place of Columbus Hospital, the shrine reopened as Cardinal Francis George celebrated Mass.
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