[1850-1917]
Frances was born in Italy, where as a child she launched paper boats filled with violets down the canal, calling them her “flower missionaries” and imagining they’d make their way to China. As an adult, she sought an audience with the pope hoping to begin missionary work in Asia, but he told her, “Not to the East, but to the West.”
So Frances headed instead to New York City, where she became a U.S. citizen (the first one canonized), organized dozens of schools for poor Italian-Americans, and ultimately earned her place as the patron saint of immigrants. There’s a shrine to her in my old neighborhood, Washington Heights, where you can view her actual remains — though her head is on display in Rome.