In
1896, Rose Hawthorne, convert daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, left the
luxury and ease of the intellectual society into which she was born for
the poverty-stricken society of cancer sufferers in the slums of New York.
With Alice Huber, who soon joined her, she worked, nursed and suffered,
sometimes almost beyond endurance, yet always with a firm trust in God
and deep interior peace.
Slowly, and with great difficulty, their charitable work grew from four
rooms on Water Street to six modern Homes where thousands of poor are
cared for annually.